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Tony Huffman

@tony_huffman

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Art historian | Curator | Critic | Lecturer | Conflicted bourgeois-bohème (un bo-bo) | Architectural gawker | Aspiring humorist

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Last week, @scout.2224 and I opened the exhibition, “A Clearing: Word, Image, Body,” which features the work of Tatyana Atkinson, Euzhan Shabazz @sillyfruitstudio Marcus Morris @marcusmorris Benjamin Smith @bendotferrari and solo @solosofree

Drawing inspiration from Toni Morrison’s notion of a clearing in her novel “Beloved” (1987), the exhibition aims to explore how multiple clearings can exist in the world for self-love and liberation: the liminal space of reading, the physical and mental sites of art-making and art-viewing, and embodied practices that carry Morrison’s lessons out into the world. The exhibition is part of the statewide celebration of the Lorain native and Nobel Laureate, organized by @literarycleveland and @ohiocelebratesmorrison A special shoutout to @beelovett for all her work supporting events across Ohio and connecting communities through Morrison’s writing.

Every exhibition is a tremendous labor of love placed in service of artists that you believe others should encounter their vision of the world. If you’re lucky, you shoulder that special burden of physical and mental labor with others. I’m grateful to have collaborated with so many creative minds @zygotepress over the summer to bring this exhibition into the world! Thank you Scout for being a curatorial partner on this project, @ratseyepress for all the creative problem-solving during install, @priscillayraddesign for all things design, @clevelandtapes for exhibition didactics support and next-level typesetting, @chandlermackprints for making my experimental printmaking dreams come true, and to CWRU and Joe Keithley for funding my summer fellowship. AND thank you to everyone who came through for the opening and guided studio event—your support means a lot 💜

The show is up through October 30, so I hope you’ll stop by—let me know if you want a tour! by @tony_huffman

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Recently, I wrote about the exhibition “Ann Hamilton: still and moving • the tactile image” @clevelandmuseumofart as part of my critical writing fellowship with Collective Arts Network (CAN).

Here’s one of my favorite passages from the review: “If the show reaches us first thorough sound—the distal end of the human sensorium—then by the end we are intimately in touch with Hamilton’s still and moving images. Each one has been absorbed and imprinted upon the eye and mind with the possibility for retrieval in the future with the right call. Perhaps this is the visual equivalent for whistling: seeing one image activates memory’s boomerang effect, summoning a host of references from the chamber of the mind’s eye.”

You can check out the full text via my linktree or through @canjournal website! #annhamilton #cma #artscriticism #exhibitionreview #canjournal taken in The Mind's Eye by @tony_huffman

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6 months ago

Act III - August-December by @tony_huffman

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10 months ago

2025 Act II - JUNE - AUGUST by @tony_huffman

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10 months ago

2025: Learning to see the world anew.

Read a lot (see photo of putting in too much intellectual elbow grease), lived deeply (gestures broadly), and began to see the world in refreshing new ways (just take my word for it).

Act I - JAN-MAY by @tony_huffman

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10 months ago

“Reality is not protected or defended by laws, proclamations, ukases, canons and armadas. Reality is that which is sprouting all the time out of death and disintegration. You can’t do anything to it; you can’t add or subtract, you can only become more and more aware. Those who are partly aware are the creators; those who are fully aware are the gods and they move among us silent and unknown. The function of the artist, who is only one type of creator, is to wake us up. The artists stimulate our imagination. (‘Imagination is the last word,’ says Varèse.) They open up for us portions of reality, unlatch the doors which we habitually keep shut.” (168)

—Henry Miller, “The Air-conditioned nightmare” (1945) by @tony_huffman

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a year ago

Some late reflections on Croatia in the form of images and words:

•Hand-plucked lavender from the shores of Trogir
•Wrestling with the Bura and Jugo winds (no wonder so many ancient stories personified the winds)
•A match made in heaven: Artforum and spritz
•Cosmic cause-and-effect: pulled by rope by boat by wind by atmospheric pressure by the sun by nuclear fusion by atomic particles
•Byzantine storehouse—what would it mean to be a foot soldier in Justinian’s empire?
•Aqueous gemstones
•Bronzino
•Mediterranean hair gel (salt water + sun)
•Parallel currents: Adriatic sea and Dalmatian walls
•Pršut
•Wenches, ropes, knots, tacking, and so much nautical terminology
•Earning a merit badge for galley cooking (Overcooked prepared me well)
•Remnants of the internecine wars between the Turks and the Venetians
•Sailing and easel painting: the former unfurls its sheets to capture fickle natural forces to chart a course—for pleasure, food, war, survival, etc. The latter stretches its cloth to properly receive and affix the aesthetic forces of its maker, who wrestles with, collaborates with social forces to similarly forge a particular path or direction. Both lead their respective passenger-observers on a journey, though rarely is it linear.
•dingy
•Thanks @kawasumilui for chartering an unforgettable adventure taken in Trogir, Croatia by @tony_huffman

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a year ago

“You don’t watch the dust motes in the air when the sun catches them and think, What do they mean? You allow them to be. How do we allow ourselves to be with?” —Ann Hamilton taken in Big Sur, California by @tony_huffman

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a year ago

It was a heady year for food and friends 💜 From high gastroculture to street meat to homecooked meals and everything in between, here’s a recap (in no particular order) of 20 of the best things I consumed over the course of what has been a year-long banquet.

•Welcome-back lunch with homemade bread, marbled tahini spread, and Tonburi @elevenmadisonpark w/ @longphanvn

•Farewell dinner with dry-aged crown of duck @franciebrooklyn also w/ @longphanvn

•No frills Käsespätzle and simple salad in Berlin

•Celebratory Phuchka in Jackson Heights to commemorate the ousting/resignation of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister w/ @heyitsniles

•Chinese dry pot @malaproject to celebrate the opening of @teppennisiri ‘s solo exhibition “Exotic Star”

•Açaí bowl at neighborhood staple @pitangabk

•Upstate roadtrip Tahchin courtesy of @anahitabagheri

• @balthazarny ‘s legendary steak frites (thanks for indulging with me @sida0_0 )

•The ethereal dessert spread @perseny

•Indonesian picnic in Berlin w/ @marlougue + @heyitsniles

•Expertly executed trial run of the Troisgros brothers’ 1975 Nouvelle Cuisine dish escalope de saumon à l’oseille + Sancerre w/ @6algo

•Lobster roll in the heat of summer after meandering through Red Hook @brooklyn_crab

• @marlougue ‘s inimitable backyard paella in Berkeley w/ esteemed company @toilekrap @heyitsniles @harsuvanakit

•Sunday morning apple strudel + espresso @cafeprueckel in Vienna

•Vietnamese coffee ice cream sandwich at Aviary in Austin, TX

•Transcendental lahmacun, lamb kebabs, piyaz, and beet hummus @namakdc w/ @therealrichiemathes @c_rolo

•Branzini, roasted potatoes, and charcuterie curated by @deveyss

•Fresh-picked figs & cheese salad à la @teppennisiri on Irving Ave

•Leftover lunch from spring dinner party (beets, cannellini beans, snap peas, cantaloupe salad, and whipped ricotta spread)

•Hearty tavern portion of Tafelspitz at Gasthaus Pöschl in Vienna by @tony_huffman

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2 years ago

300 ways to say goodbye to NYC—Part III (2023-2024) taken in Bushwick by @tony_huffman

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2 years ago

300 ways to say goodbye to NYC—Part II (2020-2022) by @tony_huffman

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I may have never witnessed my name illuminated by LEDs or hung on a theater marquee, but I’ll take a vinyl lettering credit on an exhibition wall text—or even this populist homage on Brooklyn’s own gallery walls: “TONEY” (sic)—any day of the week. Those kinds of honorifics are more in keeping with who I am anyway.

After 7 enriching, joie-de-vivre years in this inimitable and intoxicating city, I’m leaving this month to return to my 2nd alma mater to pursue a PhD in art history, a long-held ambition for anyone who knows me well.
While I’m absolutely thrilled to embark on this final academic journey, the entire summer l’ve been trying to find fitting ways to say goodbye to New York, which has ranged from outright refusal (because I know I’ll be back) to proscrastination/ preoccupation with other thoughts to interviewing friends on cultural conventions on how to say goodbye (John Wilson-esque short doc on that subject forthcoming this fall).

Ultimately, I decided to sift through innumerable photos, videos, and memories in order to loosely chronicle my time (the archival impulse can’t be put at bay), which can be chiefly characterized as a septennial age of consumption. Consumption of contemprary art, food, new ideas, old unpopular ideas made fresh again, fashion, taste, music, and every conceivable form of human expression or articulation. These material and immaterial cultural comestibles have forever changed me for the better. My tripartite tribute to NY is broken down into the following: Part I (2017-2019), Part II (2020-2022), and Part III (2023-2024).

If you feel inclined to come say goodbye, I’ll be at Ten Bells @thetenbellsbk in Bushwick on Monday, August 12th from 6pm till late—after all no one moves to NY to sleep! taken in Bushwick by @tony_huffman

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