In Rough Trade we speak about the Creole - the colliding and mixing of disparate forms creating something new, exciting and unexpected. In the 21st Century it is how we will engender a new form of Art. We will collide ideas of modernism and mix it with the post-human. For Abstraction it will move us beyond bankrupt Postmodern academicism and allow us to express our emotional lives in new visual ways. We will be out in front of the programmed systems, out beyond the examination of technique and deep into the rougher areas of our existences.

We live today with the horrible example of the corporatization of a segment of our population. The destruction of New Orleans by Hyper-Nature and Programmed Corporate Systems has become the 21st Century proving ground for the redistribution of suburban retail economic theories, wealth distribution, social eugenics and vacuous governmental privatization. The Creole, the population, the lived life has become a rootless cultural diaspora in America. Sent to camps and projects across the country this population remains unable to return to their homes - forced out by the Postmodern economic programs of 'reconstruction.' In the years to come we will begin to feel this clash between Creole life and cultural programming across the nation - this is Rough Trade.

This play between the lived and the programmed is everywhere in America. In our painting world 21st CenturyAbstractionists have had to go underground. Discredited by the 90s Academics and intellectually lost to the Hedge Fund Shoppers abstraction is having to remake itself. Let me make the distinction between the seasonal movement that has just occurred(abstraction as a style of painting) and real abstract thought. Abstraction can and does connect with lived visual experience and it will create images that engender emotional involvement - beyond the sterile examination of physical limitations or intellectual codes. It refuses to be a part of the current gallery fashion parade and product development programs. New visual ideas are making their way into the cultural matrix. They are based on the lived experience, the visual experience and the remain abstract. This is the exciting part of Rough Trade and we will be examining this in depth shortly. For now Peeping Tom on Henry Rollins' show will give you a taste of the electronic world as a Creole experience.