Where is Stephen (Steve) Poleskie Now?

Something OLD and Something NEW

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:28:47 GMT

The image below is the "something old," a poster printed during my days at CHIRON PRESS in the 1960s.

Item # 229923

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Claes Oldenburg The Paris Review Serigraph

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Description

Reference:ULEF5223
Last Name:Oldenburg
First Name:'Claes
Title:The Paris Review
Edition:97/150
Image Height(Inches):38
Image Width(Inches):25
Paper Height(Inches):38
Paper Width(Inches):25
Notes:Screenprint in two colors on white, very thick, smooth paper. Signed in pencil, lower right. Numbered in pencil, lower left. In plate: Paris Review/ Multimousse. Edition of 150 Unknown number of unsigned copies published as poster edition. Printed by Steven Poleskie at Chiron Press, New York. I started to work last summer on a poster for the Paris Review which took the form of a mattress, or the corner of a mattress. And this corner of a mattress, I think, led direcctly to an absorption in the island of Manhattan, which not only looks somewhat like this mattress, but also by the word Manhattan suggest mattress. You could think of saying Manhatress for example. An Manhatta and Hatterass.
Subject:
Medium:Serigraph
Artist Info:

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The "something new" is a review of my recent novel THE THIRD CANDIDATE

TIMELY POLITICAL SATIRE

During a primary marked by bowling fiascos, flag-pin debates, and assassination sweepstakes, Stephen Poleskie's "The Third Candidate" could not be timelier. By turns funny and frightening, this book explores the moldy underside of American politics. In a bankrupt democracy that considers thinking elitist and irony treason, this is risky business, partly because no satire can fully do justice to current events.

Feckless John S_____ has escaped his father's used car lot in the Anthracite Region to pursue an acting career in New York City. Unable to wash dishes at Sardi's, much less dine there, he works as a part-time handyman on the Lower East Side--until fate casts him in a farce that plays like a tragedy. Answering a mysterious ad for a rent-free apartment, the John becomes ensnared in a plot to rig a Congressional election. A powerful corporation wants to run the not-too-threateningly handsome young actor as a spoiler.

At first, the masquerade merely bemuses John. He studies antique newsreels of Roosevelt and Churchill, takes elocution lessons to dilute a working-class regional accent, masters prepackaged evasions and clichés for press conferences, and learns to use his charming smile like a mouth guard. But as the cynicism becomes more sinister and his handlers act more and more like his jailers, John rebels and goes off script. When he campaigns in earnest and climbs the polls, the Powers that Be promise to fit John for some heavy boots. And they don't mean Timberlands.

A graphic artist and former barnstormer, Poleskie writes with a Goyaesque eye for the absurd and the grotesque and pilots a giddily aerobatic plot. But the novel works best as a "Pilgrim's Progress" of disillusionment. As our eternal innocent bumbles toward his martyrdom, we encounter a trio of allegorical characters: John's seedy salesman father, who seems a model of moral rectitude compared to the pols and flaks at campaign headquarters; R.A., John's boorish and ruthless campaign manager, who makes Karl Rove seem like Dennis Kucinich; and Pope Joan, the idealistic volunteer who becomes John's Beatrice but cannot save him from hell.

Commenting on the Weimar artist George Grosz, John Dos Passos observed: "A satirist is a man whose flesh creeps so at ugly and savage and incongruous aspects of society that he has to express them as brutally and nakedly as possible to get relief. He seeks to put into expressive forms his grisly obsessions the way a bacteriologist seeks to isolate a virus or a dangerous micro-organism. Looking at Grosz's drawings you are more likely to feel a grin of pain than to burst out laughing. Instead of letting you be the superior bystander laughing in an Olympian way at somebody absurd, Grosz makes you identify yourself with the sordid and pitiful object."

The same can be said of Stephen Poleskie's "The Third Candidate." Readers will laugh until they sob or sob until they laugh. Not that there's much difference in America anymore.

Antony DiRenzo

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The Third Candidate by Stephen Poleskie (Paperback - May 2, 2008)

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Tags: Steve Poleskie, Chiron Press, Claes Oldenburg, screen printing, The Third Candidate

Washington DC, 30 Years Ago

Tue, 06 May 2008 01:39:24 GMT

RFK Stadium, Art'78

IN ANOTHER LIFE I used to fly an aerobatic biplane trailing smoke through a series of maneuvers to create four-dimensional performances in the sky. I called these events, which were sometimes accompanied by music and dancers on the ground, “Aerial Theater.” In May of 1978, I did a performance in Washington DC, as part of an international art festival held at the Washington Armory.

To obtain permission to fly this event was quite difficult back then, and I am sure would be impossible today. At that time my performance was only seen as a hazard to air traffic, now I am sure it would be suspected as some kind of terrorist plot.

As these performances included what are called “aerobatic maneuvers” it was necessary to obtain a waiver from the FAA before I could do them, otherwise I would be in violation of too many Federal Air Regulations to mention here. My first application for the Washington performance was denied. I planned to fly over the Anacostia River, abeam RFK Stadium. The artsy spectators would be bused from the armory to the parking lot of the stadium to watch. The poor folks on the wrong side of the river could sit on their stoops, or rooftops, and just look up. The reason for me being over the river was that it is illegal to perform aerobatic maneuvers over occupied buildings. If I should crash it would be only me that would be harmed.

The FAA initially denied my waiver on the grounds that therewould be “too much commercial air traffic in the area” at the time of day I had requested. Not to be deterred, I hopped into my other airplane, a real going-places thing not a stunt plane, and flew down to DC. Arriving over the section of the river I planned to use I called National approach control and informed then I would be circling in the area taking pictures, and asked them to call out any traffic. Now I was taking photos, which I used to design the pieces I was to perform, and which you can see here. But I had another motive.

I circled at the same time of day that my rejected application had applied for, remaining in the airspace for over thirty minutes. I was creating a record on their radar. During all that time there was only one movement through my area, and that was a military helicopter, not a scheduled airliner. Armed with that information, I resubmitted my application and it was approved.

Looking at the poster for the festival above, which lists all the artists who performed, and which was designed in that odd size to fit into slots on all the DC buses and subways, it says I was scheduled to do two performances. Nevertheless, I can only remember doing one, maybe one was rained out, but then that was thirty years ago. I do recall that there was a nice article about my event, or events, in the Washington Post, which might clear things up, but I can’t find the clipping anywhere among my papers.

The next summer I did a performance in Manhattan, over the East River abeam Pier 92, for another art festival. At that time the East River was a Visual Flight Rules corridor and no permissions of any kind were required. In the blog entry below you can see photos of me flying past the former World Trade Center buildings trailing smoke. I have no doubt that if I flew an airplane trailing smoke up the East River today I would probably be shot down, with my demise quickly appearing onYouTube in a dozen out of focus versions.

Stephen Poleskie, Ithaca, NY, 28 April 2008

Drawings for the Washington Performance

Close-up of drawing number 2

all of the above drawings a 8"x10" and are colored pencil on photocopies

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Thank you for logging on. I will have four of my early prints in a group Exhibition at the Terrain Gallery, 141Greene Street, New York City which opens on May 10, and runs until July. The announcement is below. For more information the gallery phone number is 212.777.4490. You can contact me, Steve Poleskie, by posting a comment below, or by e-mail at SPoleskie@aol.com.

WILLIAM BEHNKEN STEPHEN A. FREDERICKS SU-LI HUNG CHAIM KOPPELMAN STEVE POLESKIE ELFI SCHUSELKA RICHARD SLOAT JUDD WEISBERG

Gallery Hours: Wed-Fri 12-5; Sat 12-4

TERRAIN GALLERY / AESTHETIC REALISM FOUNDATION
141 Greene Street in SoHo, NYC

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I have a new book coming out on May 16. Some of the details are below. I shall be publishing some excerpts from this book on our sister blog: OE (a literary blog) available in the sidebar at your right.

The Third Candidate

by Stephen Poleskie
ISBN: 978-1-60047-209-1
Paperback (5.5x8.5): 204 pgs.

When an unemployed actor answers an ad for a rent-fee apartment, he finds himself involved in a bizarre scheme to rig an election. He is run for congress as a spoiler. Not supposed to win, the third candidate begins to climb in the polls when TV stations start showing reruns of a short-lived soap opera he appeared in. On election night, his victory is announced, but he has mysteriously disappeared.

Stephen Poleskie is an artist and writer. His artworks are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Tate Gallery in London, among others. Currently a professor emeritus at Cornell University, he has been a visiting lecturer at twenty-six other colleges and art schools in the United States and abroad. He has also been a champion aerobatic pilot. Poleskie’s short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, in the United States, Italy, and Australia. His novel, The Balloonist, the Story of T. S. C. Lowe, Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the U. S. Air Force, was published by Frederic C. Beil, in 2007.

$16.95

You can find this book at http://www.amazon.com/Third-Candidate-Stephen-Poleskie/dp/1600472095/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211395963&sr=1-2

Tags: Steve Poleskie, Sky Art, Washington DC, Anacostia River, Marina Abramovic, Joan Jonas, William Wegman, Howard Woody, performance art, Art '78, DC Armory

WSKG Radio Interview

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:04:03 GMT

LISTEN to the program NOW in streaming audio:

A 19th century inventor, magician and founder
of the U.S. Air Force

"The Balloonist"
by Stephen Poleskie
on WSKG Radio's OFF THE PAGE
L I V E Tuesday, August 7th at 1:00 PM
(Rebroadcast at 7:00 PM)

In the long history of warfare an essential rule has always been, "hold the high ground". From watchtowers to spy satellites, high-altitude surveillance is a military necessity. During the Civil War, Union forces were offered assistance from an innovative technology: the balloon. Hovering a thousand feet above the troops and beyond the range of enemy fire, observers could provide real-time intelligence to their forces on enemy troop movements and materiel. During the initial years of the Civil War the pre-eminent "aeronaut" was Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe.

Directing fire during an attack by the enemy to save the day was how he had imagined it. But the Confederate soldiers he was about to rain death down upon were probably having breakfast, or perhaps still peacefully asleep in some battle-scarred meadow. Lowe knew that the main purpose of war was to kill your enemy, but somehow he had always thought of his role in a more abstract way, as if he were solving some scientific problem. This was the first time he had been faced with the reality that his mission was about destroying human life, not saving it.
-- from The Balloonist

The new book "The Balloonist" by Stephen Poleskie begins with an early history of ballooning, the work of the Montgolfier brothers in France and Napoleon's interest in the balloon as an instrument of war. But the book is essentially the biography of T.S.C. Lowe, an inquisitive New Hampshire native who set out as a youth to learn the basics of science. Dubbing himself "Professor" Lowe (a title he never gave up) he was a

A portion of your purchase, made through the link above,
supports WSKG

colorful lecturer on scientific principles, a showman and magician and, above all, an experimenter with gas-filled (not hot air) balloons.
           Lowe's most daring scheme was a balloon flight across the Atlantic Ocean. But he was persuaded to first attempt a long flight over land and in 1861 took off from Cincinnati for the east coast. He came down 800 miles later in the back woods of South Carolina, a Yankee dropping out of the sky in the South just a short time after the firing on Fort Sumter. Lucky to return to the safety of the North - and motivated in part by the sorry fate of relatives of his French-born wife during the recent uprising in France - Lowe volunteered his services and his equipment to the Union cause. The backing of Joseph Henry, the nation's leading scientist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, gained Lowe the personal attention and support of President Lincoln.
           The value of Lowe's observations was obvious, but the Balloon Corps lacked official status and Lowe himself never received a military appointment. Poleskie's book graphically details the battlefield action and political disputes that led to the Balloon Corps being disbanded two years before the conclusion of hostilities. Lowe was disappointed but also disgusted by what he had seen and was suffering from malaria.
           After the war he continued his balloon exhibitions but also branched out into other fields of science and technology. He invented improved methods of gas lighting and refrigeration. Thaddeus and Leontine Lowe also had ten children, and in 1888 they moved to California, where the former balloonist became interested in the development of an incline railway and other attractions in the mountains east of Los Angeles. The project was an engineering success (though eventually a financial failure) and the site is named Mount Lowe in his honor.
           Stephen Poleskie is professor emeritus of art at Cornell University. He was well established as a painter when he decided to become an aviator and, trailing colored smoke from his biplane, traveled the world creating abstract drawings in the sky as "aerial theater". That interest has now given way to literary pursuits. "The Balloonist: the Story of T.S.C. Lowe - Inventor, Scientist, Magician and Father of the U.S. Air Force" is his first book.
           Stephen Poleskie joins Bill Jaker to tell about the attraction of ballooning and the life of Thaddeus Lowe (a couple of days after Binghamton's annual Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally draws dozens of Lowe's successors to the skies above the Southern Tier). To join in the discussion call during the 1:00 PM broadcast to 888/359-9754 or post your comments to WSKG.Radio@Gmail.com.

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Thank you for logging on. This interview aired last August on WSKG Binghamton. Several people have recently commented on it so I thought I would put it up again for those who have not heard it. I will be reading from THE BALLOONIST, along with my wife Jeanne Mackin, on Thursday, May 8th, at 7 p.m. at the Greene Public Library in Greene, NY.

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A Photo of Me Taken Last Summer at My Book Reading in Perry, NY

View annburlingham's map

Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here)

Author of _The Balloonist_, Steve Poleskie in front of Burlingham Books after book signing, 7/27/07 burlinghambooks.com/NASApp/store/Search?s=results&ini...

Comments

	mamanat says: I met Steve at Cornell in the early 80's. My ex was a grad student in fine arts. Steve once did a "private" show in his stunt plane over our home on the shores of Seneca Lake. He's a great guy! PS-I took the Erie Canal pix.geomapped it-Bushnells Basin-Pittsford NY Posted 9 days ago. ( permalink )
	annburlingham says: Steve is terrific. He was a delightful guest here at the bookstore - a great storyteller. I hope people are finding his book. Thanks for the Erie info - I've done the Mid-Lakes Navigation rental boats about 4 times, with my aunt and her friends - all my photos from those trips are slides, though! Posted 8 days ago. ( permalink )
	calanan says: A wonderful portrait. Posted 3 days ago. ( permalink )

THE BALLOONIST: Two Reviews

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:08:51 GMT

Gas Bag of Courage
(The Balloonist, 8/13/07)
By Nicholas Nicastro

The Balloonist. By Stephen Poleskie
(338 pp., Frederic C. Beil Publishers, $24.95)

It is often said that journalists write the first draft of history. Thaddeus Lowe, the pioneering inventor and aviator, was perhaps the first notable exception to this rule. Rising in his silk balloon over the killing fields of the Civil War, Lowe instantly got a breadth of perspective—a sense of who, what, and where on a grand scale—that was previously limited to scholars of great and tragic events. "To the right could be seen the York River, following which the eye could rest of Chesapeake Bay. On the left, and at about the same distance, flowed the James River..." wrote one of Lowe's most notorious passengers, George Armstrong Custer. "Between these two extended a most beautiful landscape, and no less interesting than beautiful; it being made a theatre of operations of armies larger and more formidable than had ever confronted each other on his continent before..."
      With The Balloonist: The Story of T.S.C. Lowe—Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the US Air Force, Ithaca-based writer Stephen Poleskie offers up what is perhaps the most gratifying kind of biography—one that convinces us that its subject is so manifestly significant that the absence of previous books about him seems downright mystifying. As hinted in the subtitle, Lowe (1832-1913) was something of an industrial alchemist, a restless polymath who contrived innovations in fields as disparate as chemistry, engineering, meteorology, espionage, and roadshow razzmatazz. His antebellum "magic" shows, staged under the assumed title of "Professor" Lowe, were more scientific lecture/demonstrations than the kind of portentous dinner theatre practiced by his modern descendants. Yet they were also very popular, making him not only a pioneering inventor but the Science Guy of his times.
      Lowe's lifetime passion, however, was the delicate craft of ballooning. Conceiving the then-outrageous plan to cross the Atlantic by air, he worked steadily to improve the technology and public profile of lighter-than-air aviation. The advent of the Civil War undercut public support for such adventures, but not Lowe's enthusiasm: if balloons could cross oceans, they certainly could be used to erase the front lines between armies. Along with a handful of rivals, Lowe labored hard to get Union generals to appreciate the potential of hydrogen balloons for intelligence-gathering.
      It took the intercession of Lincoln himself to finally get the US Army Balloon Corps off the ground. Rising above the battlefields of Virginia, Lowe became a unique witness to some of the most momentous battles in the war, including George McClellan's ill-fated Peninsula campaign. He became the first to supply real-time intelligence from the air when he conceived the notion of stringing a telegraph wire from his gondola. As his custom-built observation balloon floated above the trees, he also became the most shot-at man in the war, as Confederate sharpshooters and gunners attempted to erase the Union intelligence advantage by blasting him out of the sky. That Lowe exposed himself to such danger for more than two years as a civilian contractor, without commission or regular salary, is not the least of his miracles.
      Poleskie tells his story with a rare combination of practical expertise (the author is an aviator himself), empathy, and poetic vividness. Describing Lowe's lingering horror at the carnage he witnessed, Poleskie writes "A violent spasm twitched his body. Once again he heard the boundless roar of cannon; saw the shattered bodies and the collapsing bridges; listened to the clumsy, gasping cries of drowning men; and the agonizing shriek of the wounded. Riderless horses wallowed in the mud along the banks snorting flames from their nostrils. Corpses, swollen to twice their size, ground out curses and blasphemies from their bloated mouths as they floated on the spume. Summoned by he did not know what, the whole ghastly parade assembled around him, marching skyward, a relentless invasion of his senses."
      The Balloonist is full of similar, fictionalized passages, many of which are quite fine. Indeed, Poleskie is not alone in mixing the roles of historian and novelist—the bookstore shelves are lately full of similar hybrids. More literal-minded readers may chaff at this approach, however: it is occasionally nice to know which fine reflection or turn-of-phrase originates with the author, and which from Lowe's own memoirs (published only in 2004). Other strange omissions, such as a single likeness of Lowe, or an index (though Poleskie does provide a bibliography) may also frustrate the conventional reader.
      Compelling as Lowe's story is, the notion that balloon reconnaissance alone could have shortened the Civil War is arguably wishful thinking. Though Lowe did work wonders in that brief time before bureaucratic infighting finally drove him away, one senses that the skein of determined stupidity enveloping the Union general staff would have squandered any advantage. Indeed, one of the unanticipated dividends of Poleskie's book is to put the current trail of miscues in Iraq in historical perspective. If anything is as perennial as war itself, it's the quality of the foolishness it seems to attract.

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The above review appeared in the TOMPKINS WEEKLY. Thank you for logging on. Please check back again. Feel free to post a comment below. You can acess Nicholas Nicastro's web site at www.nicastrobooks.com.

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The following review of THE BALLOONIST appeared in the November 2007 issue of CHOICE

Poleskie (emer., Cornell Univ.) offers a detailed, informative picture of the life of Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe (1832-1913). One of the first to see the strategic benefits of aviation, Lowe hovered above many battlefields in the American Civil War in his balloon. Poleskie writes in an engaging and fascinating style and does an excellent job of telling the story and discussing "the most shot at man of the Civil War." Lowe's life if detailed, and specifics of the dedicated scientist and leader of the Civil War Army of the Potomac's Balloon Corps are given. Lowe's life differs from that of many inventors and scientists who are written about, as many of his inventions and accomplishments were cut short or never came to fruition due to politics or technology before its time. The book is well researched and very detailed, but lacks analysis. Also discussed are the politics surrounding Lowe's contributions and what came from his efforts. Summing Up: Recommended. E.J. Barton, Michigan State University.

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WEOS Radio Interview

Here is a recording of a radio interview Tish Pearlman did with me which aired on her program OUT OF BOUNDS on June 14, of this year. Click on my name to listen to the audio.

Stephen Poleskie
6/14/07

Artist and Writer, Stephen Poleskie

In this fascinating interview, Poleskie discusses his many life adventures as a flyer, an artist, and a writer. He also discusses his book "The Balloonist- The Story of T.S.C. Lowe: Inventor, Scientist, Magician and Father of the US Air Force."

Tish Pearlman

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Thank you for logging on. You will need a high speed connection to get the audio. To hear other interviews by Tish Pearlman you can go to her program web site: www.outofboundsradioshow.com Interviews are broadcast on WEOS-FM every Thursday at 7:00 pm. The station can be heard on 89.7 & 90.3 Geneva, NY & 88.1 Ithaca, NY, or via stream at weos.org.

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The Balloonist: The Story of T. S. C. Lowe,
Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the U.S. Air Force
by Stephen Poleskie
Category: Fiction / Historical
Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
On Sale: May 2007
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-929490-27-1

click on title for more information

Tags: Stephen Poleskie, The Balloonist, T.S.C. Lowe, Civil War balloons, General George Armstrong Custer,

Before 9/11

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:59:22 GMT

HERE ARE TWO photos of me flying my Pitts Special biplane over the Hudson River in front of the former World Trade Center towers for a performance I did in 1980. An article about my Aerial Theater performances, from the ITHACA TIMES, appears in the previous entry below. These photos can also be accessed from this article, but I have posted them here as news photos do not stay up too long on the Internet.

There is some interest in my Sky Art events again, and a book may eventually come out of it. If you have ever witnessed one of these events, in New York or anywhere else, please let me know. I would especially be interested to hear from people who have photographs. You can post a comment below, or e-mail me at SPoleskie@aol.com.

Steve Poleskie

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Several people have sent in questions about the above photographs. One of the questions is "Are these photos real?" The answer is definately, Yes.

In the 1980's I did a number of performances over US cities, including New York City, Richmond, Toledo, and San Francisco using my Pitts Special aerobatic biplane, which is pictured with me below. These events were viewed by a wide audience. Strange as it may seem, at my event in Sonoma, California a UFO even appeared. An article about this sighting from the Berkeley Gazette can be found on the web or in the archives of this blog. It is also mentioned in Jeffery Mishlove's book The PK Man.

I also did a number of performances using my twin engine airplane, a Piper Apache, which I was also able to take passengers up in with me. An article about this, and a photograph of the airplane also are below.

Steve Poleskie with his aerobatic biplane, Ithaca, NY, ca. 1983

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APOGEE AIRWAY

THE MAY 1986 ISSUE OF ART NOW/NEW YORK GALLERY GUIDE carried this profile of APOGEE AIRWAY. The French art critic Pierre Restany is shown with me in front of my Piper Apache just prior to taking a flight from Teterboro Airport on May 14, 1984. Restany was just one of several art critics to fly with me, others included Peter Frank and Donald Kuspit.

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Thank you for logging on please come back again. You might also want to check the archives, available by hitting the word in the upper right hand corner at the top, for things you may have missed.

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NEW FEATURE: When you get to the bottom entry you will find a new feature. If you click on << Older Entries, you can keep scrolling through previous postings without resorting to searching the archives. Try it, it works well, and I won't have to keep recycling entries that I think people should see, but don't have the patience to hunt up in the files.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Steve Poleskie

MOMA POSTER, obg

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:36:15 GMT

The ogb in the title stands for Oldies But Goodies. Just like television I am going to slip in a rerun from time to time. The reason is that I have found few people look in the archives, or even know they are there, and there is a lot of good stuff that gets missed. After a posting moves down to the archives it is as if it had died. I won't just bring them back, but plan to spruce them up with perhaps a new typeface, or additional information.

Poster from MOMA Collection

Steve Poleskie, International Poetry Form Poster, screen print, 1968

THIS IS A POSTER I did for the Carnegie Foundation in 1968. It was one of the last things I printed at Chiron Press before leaving New York City for a teaching job at Cornell University. And I do recall pulling the squeegee myself. Brice Marden was no longer my printer, having left some months earlier to work for Bob Rauschenberg. An interview with Brice, in which he discusses his days at Chiron Press can be found in the archives of this blog.

As I remember, the Carnegie Foundation, which was in Pittsburgh, invited prominent printmakers to design posters for events they were sponsoring. I am sorry but I can't remember who else participated in the series. As I recall the series was run by the Pratt Graphic Arts Center, which was in Manhattan. I also am not quite sure how my poster got into the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. The "three young poets" James Denboer, John l'Heureux, and Paul Zimmer are, alas, no longer young poets, and I do come across their work from time to time. John l'Heureux heads the writing program at Stanford University.

I had completely forgotten about this poster until, about ten years later, I came across it while I was browsing in the bookstore of the Los Angeles County Museum. I was looking through a book titled, Images of an Era: the American Poster 1945 - 75. This was the catalog for an exhibition organized to mark the Bicentennial by the National Collection of Fine Arts, of the SmithsonianInstitution, Washington, D. C. As I flipped through the book there, on page 98, was a reproduction of my work. The Smithsonian had borrowed the poster from the MOMA's collection, so no one had bothered to inform me about the show, which began at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, then traveled to the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and the Grey Art Gallery of NYU in New York City. The exhibition was also shown in London and Aberdeen, during the Autumn of 1976; in Bergen, Oslo, Munich, Aalborg, Vienna and Amsterdam in 1977; and in Humlebaek, Hamburg, Paris and Spoleto in 1978. I never did get to see it anywhere though.

Shortly before Images of an Era was to be shipped to Europe I did get a call from the Smithsonian telling me that the MOMA would not lend my poster for the European shows as it was, and these were their words, "too valuable to travel." They asked if I knew where they could get another copy. I allowed as how I had three copies still remaining, and they bought one for their collection.

The poster above is reproduced from the catalogue. As the book was too large to fit on my scanner I had to photograph it, which is why it looks a little lopsided. I wanted to get the text in the picture and couldn't get the book to lie flat without breaking the spine, which I didn't want to do. I couldn't photograph my only remaining copy as this is in a frame under glass and I didn't want to take the poster out. After all, it is thirty-eight years old, and was never meant to last forever. I do not know if there are any other copies of this poster out there. Perhaps someone will write and let me know if they have one.

The show contained numerous other posters also printed at Chiron Press. The cover of the book was a "ticket" by Andy Warhol which we had originally printed on vinyl, and quite large. Andy had another poster in the show we printed for the Paris Review. There was also a Paris Review poster by Marisol. Roy Lichtenstein had an Aspen Winter Jazz Poster we printed. Robert Indiana was represented by his first "love" poster which we printed in 1966 for his show at Stable Gallery.

The book has over 200 posters in it, as well as a foreword by Joshua C. Taylor, then director of the National Collection of Fine Arts. There is also an introduction by John Garrigan, as well as articles by Margaret Cogswell, Milton Glaser, Dore Ashton, and Alan Gowans. It is probably next to impossible to find a copy of this book today, but if you should come across one in a used book store it would be well worth having. Sad to say, there just doesn't seem to be the interest in posters now as there was back then. Perhaps it is that our eyes are too tired out from being bombarded by advertising images everywhere all the time, even, I must admit, on the top of this blog.

Steve Poleskie

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THANK YOU for logging on. Please check back again. And you might want to look in the archives for things you may have missed. There is a previous entry above that contains an interview with Brice Marden in which talks about the days when he worked as a screen printer for me at Chiron Press, and lived in a loft in the same building, 76 Jefferson Street. You might also find something interesting on our sister Internet journal, OE (a literary blog) available through the side bar on your right. If you wish, feel free to post a comment below. You may also reach me by e-mail at SPoleskie@aol.com.

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Tags: Steve Poleskie, posters, Museum of Modern Art, Intrenational Poetry Forum,

A Statement Written for an Art Exhibition

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:23:53 GMT

Pilgrimage: Inner and Outer Destinations

We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing, too. W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge.

What was my journey? Pilgrims do not normally carry their destinations with them. When what you are seeking is the sky, however, your goal surrounds you constantly, its lightness weighing on your shoulders. It even extends to the ground, so you step lightly. Or did I? Or was it merely “up” that I was seeking - and hating the way?

Yes, I once sought the sky; to put my brand on it, stripe it, circle it, bore holes in it. But that was then. Now I leave it alone.

In 1985, I traveled to Toledo, Ohio, to do an Aerial Theater performance. This is one of the drawings I made preparatory to that event which I called “Sky Dances of the Maumee,” the Maumee being the river that sliced through the city’s downtown. My program was wedded to that river, the only space I was permitted to fly over. If the airplane was to go down it must be only me who would be injured, or perhaps die. Thanks to a requirement of the FAA, the sponsors provided a rescue boat with a doctor in it cruising below. I later found out that the “doctor” had been a veterinarian, the only person they could find who would volunteer his services. Toledo was not my destination, only a stop on what I thought at the time was my great journey.

For my performance in Toledo I had dancers on the ground, the Valois Dance Company, accompanied by musicians, the Tower Brass Quintet. All went well. It was probably the most coordinated event I have ever presented. But Toledo is not a destination for major art critics, unless you bring your own. There were nice articles in the local newspapers, and on television. When it was all over I was paid $2000.00. The woman from Chamber of Commerce said that this was as much as they usually paid rock stars. I was also taken out to dinner at a restaurant owned by a popular actor, who hailed from Toledo, and whose name I have forgotten, who once played Corporal Klinger on the TV series MASH.

Sky Dances of the Maumee, collage, ca. 1985

In 1986, Kassel, in Germany, was a grander destination. I would be going farther on the great journey. I had a whole room filled with of my drawings, like the one here, in the Kasseler Kunstverein. I also did a thirty-three foot tall “sky drawing” on the museum’s main stairwell wall with blue chalk. The wall drawing was erased after the exhibition, just as my drawings in the sky were dispersed by the wind. There were drawings in the sky, butI was not allowed to fly the airplane. Instead they were executed by a professional skywriter from Hamburg.

A year later I was invited to participate in Documenta, a major international art exhibition also held in Kassel, but at a different venue. Then my invitation was suddenly withdrawn. I subsequently learned that the organizers had been unaware of my previous exhibition when they had invited me. Documenta needed to have the latest thing, at least for Kassel, where I was last year’s stuff.

Splitting the Fulda, collage, ca. 1985

Now I am headed in a different direction. I have no idea how far I shall go, but the destination, as always, is up. The one thing I am sure of though is that this time I have fewer days remaining to get there.

Steve Poleskie, Ithaca NY, 21 July 2007

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Below is the poster for the show.

Poster designed by Rebecca Godin

Something I Didn't Do . . . . .

The "Artist's Money" below appears on the ArtPool web site attributed to me. But I never recall doing it. The printing certainly isn't mine, and I would have no idea where to find a blank Barclays Bank check. You can click on the "artist's money" link below to see more "money" designed by other artists, many very well known. I wonder if these people did their images for this project? If you click on the "web" link you will get the image of a mail art piece that I did do for an ArtPool project.

Steve Poleskie (USA) 1980 - (web)

[artists´ money / mûvészpénz]

Tags: Steve Poleskie, Aerial Theater, Toledo Ohio, Kassel Germany, Documenta,

HAITI 1980

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:41:49 GMT

IN DECEMBER OF 1980, I flew to the island of Haiti in my twin engine Piper Apache, N3367P. I was accompanied by my wife, her girlfriend, one of my colleagues from the art department at Cornell, and her young daughter.

Our original destination was Georgetown, in the Bahamas, where my colleague's mother had a house. After a few days in Georgetown, when we realized that the main activity in town was watching drug smugglers pass through the port, we sought for a change of scene. Cuba was the closest place, but we couldn't go there, so decided on a trip to Haiti. "Baby Doc" was in power at the time, and we were told the country was safe for tourists, if not too secure for dissident locals.

The flight was short, and without incident; although the air traffic controllers kept warning us about the "Cuban airspace" off to our right, as if we were about to stray into it and start a war.

Our first stop in Haiti was the airport at Cape Haitian, where I properly landed to clear customs. After a Jeep ride into town, where we discovered that there was more going on in the place we had just left, we decided to head for the capital, Port-au-Prince. On the way there we passed over "The Citadel" a large castle, fortification, built by Napoleon, for one of his relations who he had put in charge of the country. Not being on a flight plan, I could not resist swooping down to take photographs, two of which appear below.

The Citadel from the air, looking southeast. (photo copyright Steve Poleskie 2007)

I recently dug out these photos for a friend of ours who is an authority on Haitian art and is collaborating on a book about The Citadel. I told her a story, which I had heard from a former student of mine who, after having graduated from Cornell, had gone back to his native country to work as an architect.

By the time I ran into "Freddo" at an alumni function he had become a distinguished architect in Haiti and was working on the task of restoring The Citadel. I told him that I had flown over The Citadel on a date that was then fresh in my mind, but I would now have to search up in my long misplaced log books.

Ferddo became alarmed, and then bemused. He asked if I was in a small, twin engine airplane, white with brown and orange trim. I replied that was me. The architect then reveled that at the same moment I was circling The Citadel at a low altitude, Baby Doc was being driven up the hill accompanied by Freddo, and a small army, to inspect the restoration's progress. Baby Doc, apparently annoyed by the my airplane's presence, or perhaps feeling threatened, had announced that if the airplane came around again his men should shoot it down. Although he had no idea at the time that the pilot was me, Freddo remembered he was very happy when he saw the airplane turn away. I never knew, until years later, how close I had come to being an international incident, or perhaps just disappeared.

Steve Poleskie

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Thank you for logging on. Please come back again. And check the achieves for articles you may have missed. My next book signing for THE BALLOONIST will be on Saturday, October 6, at 6:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, PA as part of the Wilkes University Homecoming Celebration. You can find out more by contacting the store at sm502@bncollege.com.

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From the current WSKG-FM, Binghamton newsletter:

NEXT TIME: Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe may not yet be a familiar name, but he was a pioneer in the skies. The new book “The Balloonist” is a biography of the 19th century scientist, showman and visionary whose aerial surveillance activity during the Civil War would earn him status as a father of the U.S. Air Force. The author of “The Balloonist” is Stephen Poleskie, professor emeritus of art at Cornell who has moved from visual to literary expression. He visits OFF THE PAGE on August 7th.

Tags: Steve Poleskie, Haiti, The Citadel,

A New Look At My Old Art

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:22:49 GMT

Flying High

By: Wylie Schwartz

11/20/2007

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Photo Gallery

Upon emigrating to the U.S. after the second world war, Marcel Duchamp declared that if this is what art would lead to then he wasn't going to make any more. Wondering if Steve Poleskie's seemingly abrupt departure from the art world might have been enacted under similar sentiments, I decided to visit him at his Ithaca residence to try to uncover what motivated him to stop making art - or at the very least, to find out what he has been up to since.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Poleskie is perhaps best known for his Aerial Sky Performances, a type of performance art involving flying an aerobatic bi-plane with trailing smoke through a series of maneuvers to create a four-dimensional design in the sky. Musicians, dancers, and parachutists often accompanied the pieces, making his art in many ways closer to dance than say, painting or sculpture. The French art critic Pierre Restany called it 'Planetary Art,' and described it thus: "It escapes the exhibition room to conquer nature, its infinite and elemental spaces."
In a 1983 performance, Poleskie flew his plane around the World Trade Towers. Today, viewing the pictures taken during the performance encourages the type of visceral reaction that really good art is capable of evoking. Says Poleskie: "You used to be able to fly around and make art - if someone tried to do this now we would think it was the second coming of Jihad."
Though the performances, as well as the drawings and collage that accompany each piece, may appear difficult to understand, seen within the context of art made at the time - when artists were either taking it out into the landscape or exploring the possibilities of performance art - the Sky Performances incorporated elements of both, while working within the framework of a previously unexplored format: the fourth dimension of time.
Sky Art proved especially popular in Europe, where an emphasis on conceptual art was the focus of many dealers, curators and critics during the 1970s and '80s. So popular in fact, that works on paper from this period are found in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London's Tate Gallery, the Castlevecchio in Italy, and the State Museum in Poland.
However, as the story goes, in 2000, Poleskie set out to destroy a vast number of his early works, and, withdrawing the rest from the market, stopped making art. "You just get tired of them, or you think the work wasn't so good anyway, so off they go. Then later you remember you pitched it out one day in a frenzy of cleaning and wish you hadn't. I remember living on 76th St. and throwing some of my sculptures down the air vent because I didn't know how else to get rid of them. "
While it is not unusual for an artist to destroy pieces or even entire collections of work, it is usually not so common for a successful artist who has managed to make a career out of it to stop. Nevertheless, that's what happened. Selling both of his airplanes, and taking early retirement from Cornell, because "it's kind of hard to teach art when you don't care about it anymore," he turned his attention to writing.
His most recent achievement being The Balloonist, a biographical novel on the Civil War aeronaut Thaddeus S. C. Lowe which, after taking four years to complete, was published earlier this year. "I figured I had exhausted the potential for Sky Art to go where it was going. Very few people understood what I was doing anyway - I think I had more influence at air show flyers than on art - so I decided to retire and stop making these events that no one cared about anyway. No sense pestering people."
Though, for the record, the evidence - the vast amount of work that is in some of the top art institutions of the world - would indicate that this is not entirely the case. Not to mention that in terms of art's influence over future generations of artmaking, it is often simply too soon to tell.
As a visual artist, Poleskie's roots are traceable to around 1958, when as an economics major at Wilkes College, he signed up for an art elective. After graduating, he moved around for a few years, traveling and working at various jobs ranging from party designer to high school teacher, and focused on his painting.
His earlier work, small, often oddly-shaped abstract landscapes, reveal his Minimalist origins, and examples can be found in collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the National Collection in Washington, D.C.
Inevitably, Poleskie decided it was time to go to the center of Western art's leading edge. Renting an empty storefront at E. 11th St., he opened a silkscreen workshop called Chiron Press, employing the young painter Brice Marden as one of his first printers. Being New York's first commercial press of its kind, Chiron was wildly successful, and soon had to relocate to larger quarters.
The new site was based at 76 Jefferson St., a five-minute walk from Max's Kansas City, the favorite hangout of the Abstract Expressionist crew, who it seems, at one point or another, all deployed Chiron's services. During the five years that Poleskie ran the operation, Chiron made prints for artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler.
With an increasing feeling that working in two dimensions was too restrictive, he expanded into the third by making sculpture. His work during the time was a kind of sculpture/painting hybrid, not entirely unlike the Minimalist 'specific objects' infiltrating the artworld at the time.
In 1968, Poleskie sold Chiron and accepted a teaching position at Cornell. It was after moving to Ithaca that he met his wife, author Jeanne Mackin. It was also when he became a pilot. "I was making these huge landscape paintings and no one would exhibit them, so I decided to learn to fly."
Whilst he has devoted a large chunk of the past four years focused on writing - he is currently wrapping up his latest novel, a fictional story centered around a political election scandal - there is evidence to suggest that he hasn't completely lost the urge to create art.
Somehow, in the process of teaching himself to operate his new digital camera, he inadvertently created a new series of images, a collection of colorful compositions featuring handsome arrangements of fruit, flowers and other pretty things, inspired by 16th Century Dutch still life paintings.
Poleskie commented that he is surprised to find the pictures 'selling like hotcakes' at the Terrain Gallery in New York. Perhaps this boost in confidence is just what he needed to reinvigorate his faith in art, and in his ability as a creator - though, it may be too soon to tell. Local residents can see one in the forthcoming group show at the Upstairs Gallery, opening on Nov. 27.

©Ithaca Times 2007

This article appears in the November 21 issue of the Ithaca Times. Check out the Photo Gallery for two interesting photos of me flying my biplane in front of the former World Trade Center towers. For more information on my Aerial Theater please check the ARCHIVES which you can access through an icon just above the top entry. Please feel free to post a comment below.

Steve Poleskie

Tags: Steve Poleskie, Sky Art, Aerial Theater, World Trade Center towers, Chiron Press, Brice Marden, Ithaca NY artists