WOODSTOCK TIMEs      September 21, 2000     

                                                         Who’s Your Daddy?    by Bob Miller

   I don’t know why some art sells and some doesn’t.  I do know that if  Van Gogh were living and painting in Woodstock, the chances are that Nobodaddy wouldn’t notice.  That’s because Nobodaddy—or most Nobodaddies—are watching television and won’t be visiting Alan Lasser’s Woodstock Night Gallery, open seven nights a week from 7 p.m. to well after Nobodaddy’s bed-time.

   I am not the discerning art critic or trend-setter that could catapult Alan to fame, and I certainly haven’t sold one of my own paintings.  But I do identify with Alan because I paint in the same psychedelic day-glo manner that he does.  Alan shows his striking art work at the Woodstock Night Gallery in a loft across from Christy’s.  You won’t have any trouble finding the gallery if you park across from Christy’s and look up to the sky and stars.

   I’ll bet whenever Alan’s kind of psychedelic art shows up as a background in some futuristic movie, or the sound-track is electronic music, Nobodaddy’s eyes and ears perk up.  But to listen to electronic music or to look at psychedelic art in its essence is too much for Nobodaddy.  Nobodaddy prefers yee old flat, realistic landscape that doesn’t challenge, but soothes to sleep, or to tv.

   Alan is a better man than I am because he has the chutzpah to be out there, has rented a large space and shows his work, sell or not sell.  His exhibit won’t be in the gallery forever, so you have nothing to lose and you may actually enjoy yourself by staying up past your bed-time—or more likely your tv time by visiting.  This is not your Nobodaddy 9-to-five operation where the gallery owner gets 50 per cent of the artist’s sales.  Here the artist gets all the sales and gives 50 per cent of the money to the landlord, so it’s all the same, and capitalism is safe.

   Alan’s tried to go the way of the poster, which would sell more copies than an original, but the quality hasn’t been satisfactory, so there are no posters—at least not yet—just the originals in their beautiful, glowing vibrating essence.  The art is black-light, day-glo, fluorescent, psychedelic, without the disco or the movie to accompany it.  It’s unique, it’s manic, it’s intense, it’s enthralling—certainly to me.