June 2007 Archives

Paula Cooper - Tax Evasion

 

This bit of street art seems to be a trend in Chelsea. See also: this photo from Michael Mandiberg.

James has a post on a proposal from The Mayor's Office of Theater, Film, and Broadcasting to make it harder to take photographs or film videos without getting a permit. This reminds me of our friend Donald's suggestion for protest signs saying

City only for use of paying customers

egon-schiele-bedroom.jpg

Egon Schiele
The Artist’s Bedroom in Neulengbach, 1911

 

This show ends July 2nd. We saw it yesterday (after a lovely lunch at Café Sabarsky) and highly recommend it. It's wonderful to stand in front of paintings of Van Gogh and others in a serene museum setting. My only quibble was the very grouchy bag inspector who barked "you have to check this!" regarding my 12 × 10 x 3 inch bag.

Visit the bad flash website for more information.

[image from the Neue Galerie's website]

Smaller NYPD class raises fears, AM New York (emphasis mine below)

Researchers and city officials Wednesday wondered if an increasingly stretched police force can continue to keep crime rates down on the same day that the NYPD fell far short in its goal of 2,800 recruits at cadet graduation.

...

While 1,097 cadets graduated Wednesday, the department is 1,828 short of the number of officers it is allowed to hire this year, an NYPD spokesman said. The force has steadily declined as veteran officers retire or leave the city to work in higher-paying areas.

Critics have charged that the city is unable to attract enough recruits because NYPD salary levels are not competitive with those in the suburbs and New Jersey. Police academy recruits start at $25,100, a rate that's lower than newly hired sanitation workers, Central Park gardeners and plumbing inspectors. Top pay maxes out at $59,588.

 

Related:

Braniff Airlines flight attendant uniforms by Pucci and Halston

Hany-Armanious%2C-Lion-Eyes.jpg

Hany Armanious, Lion Eyes, 2004-7 (detail view)

 

A bilingual announcement of a show in Paris arrived in my inbox last night from Foxy Production. The English section is reproduced below.

Castillo/Corrales and Galerie Balice inaugurate their guest program with "Lion Eyes", a project by Hany Armanious, organized by Foxy Production (New York).

Lion Eyes comprises a mechanized spiral vortex, known as a "trizonal space warper", and a copy of "Crying Boy", from the mythologized and widely reproduced series of paintings attributed to Bragolin, a Spanish artist also known by many other names. Armanious invites one to gaze at the "space warper", which after ten seconds confuses the brain, creating an hallucinatory undulating effect. When one then turns to the "Crying Boy", the space between it and the viewer seems to collapse as it billows out into three dimensions.

Using disparate materials and motifs, Armanious interweaves materiality and opticality to draw attention to widely overlooked or specious cultural phenomena. He produces installations and sculptural forms that are irreverent, critical, and anarchic.

Hany Armanious (Cairo, Egypt, 1962) holds a BA in Visual Arts from the City Art Institute, Sydney, Australia. He was included in the Aperto section of the 1993 Venice Biennale, the 1994 Sydney Biennale, and the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale. In 1998 he was awarded the Möet and Chandon Fellowship. In 2001 his major installation work Selflok was showcased at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. He currently has a solo exhibition at Wellington City Gallery, New Zealand. A new monograph on Armanious' work will be produced in partnership with IMA, Brisbane.

Foxy Production is a contemporary art gallery based in New York with a diverse program, whose mission is to foster distinctive artists that challenge both aesthetically and conceptually.

Galerie Balice will open this September in the near proximity of castillo/corrales.

castillo/corrales is a gallery run by a group of artists, curators and writers, based on the principle of French hospitality.

For further information or high resolution images contact Chelsea Goodchild: t: +1 212 239 2758

Related: James wrote about Hany Armanious's work that Foxy showed at The Armory Show.

See! I told you to go. Time Out NY loves it. We're seeing it tonight (Thursday).

Yet no mere catalog of the show’s selling points can do justice to its overall effect. Some of the stories involve the seemingly insignificant disappearance of small objects; others treat the loss of graver things like language, parts of dead bodies and, in Friedman’s songs, romantic attachment. These disparate tales are crafted into a mosaic whose abstract design is visible from afar, yet whose constituent parts retain their particularity. At once erudite and democratic, Gone Missing is not merely a witty, quick-footed and entertaining evening of theater; it is also a finely tuned inquiry into the nature of memory that manages to be forward-looking at the same time. Gone Missing’s links between past and present provide clear evidence of evolution in the world of modern theater. Miss it and weep.

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Tom Sanford, Beckhams diptych [found on his blog]

I'm so happy that they've announced the opening date for their inaugural show on Ludlow Street: No New Tale To Tell.

Tom Sanford
has more details.

Jacques tells me there will be more performances on July 6 and 7 at SUNDAY. See the previous blog post for more information on what to expect.

Two fun YouTube finds.

Dan Deacon! I own a CD of his music. Local television in Savannah/Hilton Head is pretty hip if this is the kind of thing they present!

 

Deee-Lite

 

It's not as mortifying as I feared, although the bags under my eyes are pretty impressive. He did leave out my favorite part. When I said, "Collectors: don't let anyone else tell you what to buy," a cheer rose from the crowd.

Apparently, Jack Shainman isn't the only art dealer involved in real estate these days. Check out the website for The Machinery Exchange, which lists Max Protetch as one of the developers.

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The Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performing “Arab Line.” (Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)

 

Cedar Lake Dance, the well-funded dance company on 26th Street in the former Annie Leibovitz studios, hasn't always received stellar reviews for its choreographic choices. While I hope they find some younger, underknown choreographers to work with, I have to say I am thrilled with what happened when they brought Ohad Naharin in for a residency with the company's dancers. If you didn't know it, you would think these dances had been working with him for years. It was one of my favorite evenings of dance in some time, and the music ranging from Arvo Pärt to Vivaldi to John Zorn is great fun too.

It runs through July 1. If you go, do NOT spend intermission away from the stage. The night we attended, Jon Bond performed a sexy and funny solo during that time. Go here to buy tickets.

Related links:

Brought to you by the letter A

I wrote about this excellent short work when we saw it in March. Now there is another chance to see it. It will be the best five bucks you spend this summer!

--

The Hellenic Laboratory, a collection of works of Greek drama, poetry, and philosophy, continues for one-night only!

Monday, June 25th @ 7:30pm, Tickets only $5
The Kitchen 512 West 19th St (btw 10/11 Ave)
To reserve tickets call 212-255-5793 ×11

(more) MEZE, an evening of five short pieces to whet your appetite

Jacques Louis Vidal at SUNDAY

 

I've uploaded a flickr set from Jacques's opening on Friday. The show is titled "Wood Folks is Good Folks," and here is a video of part of the performance in which Jacques is helping transform people into the highest plane of being -- wood people. That's Jacques in the "house hat."

 



Operation AZRA banner

 

Via Caryn Coleman I learned of this benefit. There is an exhibition tomorrow at the Bubble Lounge, and an online auction which has already started and ends July 1 at 11:59pm.

--

Photojournalists from prestigious organizations such as National Geographic, the photo agency VII, TIME, Newsweek and The New York Times donate iconic works in an Exhibition and Online Print Auction to benefit victims of acid burning in Pakistan.

Live event to support the auction June 26th at 7 pm

Featuring prints by James Nachtwey , John Stanmeyer and Jan Grarup, only available for bidding during a silent auction at:

The Bubble Lounge
228 W Broadway
New York City
212.431.3433

With live performance by Sparlha Swa, projections by SeenUnseen, and of course champagne and lots of cool people!

World-renowned photojournalists are donating their favorite images, signed and printed, to raise money for female victims of acid burning and to raise awareness about a fate inflicted on many women in Pakistan. Marked with dishonor, their harsh disfigurement often forces them to live in the shadows of every-day life--excluded by family and society.

Here is your chance to literally change a woman's life while also owning some of the most compelling photojournalism of the modern era.

Online Auction items include never before available work by such photographers as The New York Times' Todd Heisler, whose emotional Pulitzer Prize-winning work on the return of deceased soldiers from Iraq will be available for purchase for the first time.

Participating photographers include:

  • Lynsey Addario
  • Samantha Appleton
  • Andrea Bruce
  • Marcus Bleasdale
  • Tamas Dezso
  • Jessica Dimmock
  • Balazs Gardi
  • David Gillanders
  • David Guttenfelder
  • Todd Heisler
  • Lynn Johnson
  • Ed Kashi
  • Gary Knight
  • Antonin Kratochvil
  • Yuri Kozyrev
  • Teru Kuwayama
  • Shaul Schwartz
  • Stephanie Sinclair
  • Kadir Van Lohuizen
  • Ami Vitale

Initially, the proceeds will help Azra Latif, a Pakistani woman who suffered third-degree acid burns on her face and torso and faces a lifetime of agony as her injuries continue to scar and worsen the longer they remain untreated.

Background

Azra, 33, was severely burned two years ago when her brother-in-law threw acid on her face during an argument.

When Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair first met her in 2005, at a shelter in Lahore, Pakistan, Azra said to her, "Everyone photographs me but no one helps."

So Sinclair contacted Marie Jose Brunel, a nurse with the French NGO HumaniTerra, who convinced the organization to provide Azra reconstructive surgery for free starting July 2. She will spend three-months in the hospital receiving multiple skin grafts. The money raised will help provide transportation, housing and other living expenses for Azra, and her husband, Abdul Latif. Any extra money will go towards helping future victims through the same life-saving process.

Special thanks to Chris Pacetti, Natasha Chandani, and Jon Resh, who helped with the graphic design on this project.

avaf-installation.jpg

assume vivid astro focus installation view with happy viewer

 

ArtCat's relentless march across 27th Street continues.

John Connelly Presents is the latest gallery to sign up for the ArtCat hosting service. A few pages are a little slow to load at the moment, as they have some huge images which haven't been web-optimized yet.

Jacques Louis Vidal detail

 

For a Friday in June, there is a lot going on tonight. Some recommendations follow.

Chelsea Opening

Lower East Side Openings

While you're in the area, you can stop by the Drag March too.

Other Stuff

  • ROFL! - Touted as an Internet gong show of sorts, the competition takes place at 11:30 tonight at Joe’s Pub, and brings together some of the best web mavericks working today. The concept is simple: Eight cewebrities pit their best Internet finds and creations, and the audience determines the winner of each round of submissions. Participants include Marisa Olson and S.T. VanAirsdale of The Reeler.
  • This looks like an excellent concert of piano music at 8pm at the Tenri Institute on West 13th Street. Our friend Idith Meshulam is one of the performers.

[image above is a detail of a Jacques Louis Vidal drawing from our show]

peter corrie legaleagle

 

A new image from Peter Corrie, found in his flickr feed. He was in the show we curated last fall.

For those of you following along, I'm wondering if the powers that be are realizing that appearing to be hostile to parades, especially queer ones at this time of year, is a bad thing. According to onNYTurf, The Audre Lorde Project is getting their permit to parade in the streets on Friday after having been denied several times. They received their permit as they were about to take the NYPD to court.

It will be interesting to see how "un-permitted" and historic protest marches such as the Dyke March and the Drag March are treated.

LoVid at David Krut

 

LoVid at David Krut (detail)

 

Here are another couple of images from the Renee Ricardo-curated show I mentioned yesterday. The works are created by printing out stills of videos produced by visualizing audio information, then cutting them up and making collage/sculpture works.

Doug Morris at David Krut

 

Doug Morris at David Krut

 

A full image and a detail of a Doug Morris foam and ribbon sculpture from "Homegrown" at David Krut Projects, curated by Renee Riccardo. Good light that day -- these photos were untouched by Photoshop.

Related to my previous post, here are a couple of news items of note.

240x172_trial.jpg

Robert Lindsay as Tony Blair

BBC America presented this film on Sunday, but James and I just watched it tonight. I don't know how to get a copy to anyone, but if you have a friend who has DVR-ed it, ask them to see it. The premise:

The year is 2010, and Blair is giving his last ministerial broadcast, having finally handed over the reins of power to his deputy, Gordon Brown. On the other side of the Atlantic, President Hillary Clinton is campaigning for her second term at the White House, and former President Bush is in rehab.

...

To compound his problems, the International Criminal Court is looking to bring War Crimes charges against the former UK and U.S. leaders – and now that Blair isn’t Prime Minister, he no longer has Diplomatic Immunity from prosecution.

I looked at Google News to see who had written about it in the U.S,, and came up with very few items from this country. It's interesting to me that the New York Times never mentioned it. Perhaps it hits a little too close to home, and they fear some of their reporters might have to testify in such a trial.

joe-ovelman-ebay-mix.JPG

Joe Ovelman just wrote to tell us about the eBay celebrity camera auction benefiting the MIX Festival. There are five days left.

His camera is here and the entire list is here. It's a pretty interesting list. Mary Birdsong of downtown performance and Reno 911 fame is even included!

Sara Peters Seance

Sarah Peters Séance 2005 pen, pencil and charcoal on paper 18" × 24"

 

On Friday, James and I attended the opening of the Sarah Peters show at Winkleman Gallery. We loved it so much that we did something we've rarely done lately -- bought a new piece for the collection. We also made it a "top pick" on ArtCal. I titled this post "Full disclosure" as I don't want people thinking we secretly set things to top picks to influence the market. We're not in the business of selling our art, and so far have never de-accessioned a piece.

Update: James has a post on the show now, and supplied the image above.

operation-first-casualty-lovella-calica.jpg

Operation First Casualty, Memorial Day 2007. Photo by Lovella Calica. (From the Brooklyn Rail)

 

I can't believe I just now heard about this action. The Iraq Veterans Against the War staged a protest on Memorial Day in many locations in New York (including Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Ground Zero), with the goal of the bringing the reality of the Iraq War to America. The Brooklyn Rail has an excellent article, and the video above came from The Nation. Here is an excerpt from the Brooklyn Rail article.

It was Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of Fleet Week. At the corner of Broadway and 44th Street, a small group of men and women wearing oversized white t-shirts waited for the light to change. Tourists, military personnel and locals enjoying the long holiday weekend pushed and squeezed their way through the crowd.

Out of nowhere and without provocation, nine soldiers in full-desert fatigues appeared and screamed at the group in white to “get on the fucking ground.” The soldiers pinned people to the pavement and began “bagging and tagging,” using zip-ties on their wrist and stuffing bags over their heads.

People ran to get out of the way. The crowd pushed back to create a wall of wide eyes and open mouths around the soldiers. A hotdog vendor stopped in the middle of Broadway and held up traffic. Strangers exchanged looks of confusion and concern, unsure of what, if anything, should be done.

With precision, the soldiers moved quickly, separating the detainees from the rest of the group. As soon as the site was secure, the squad leader, Demond Mullins, called for the group to “form up” and they proceeded through the stunned crowd down Broadway.

If this were Iraq, a truck would have pulled up to transport those unfortunate detainees to a detention facility. Instead, people in black t-shirts with “Iraq Veterans Against the War” printed across the front quickly distributed fliers to on-lookers that read: “This is Operation First Casualty. The first casualty in war is the truth.”

Operation First Casualty is modeled after the Vietnam-era protest action Operation Rapid American Withdrawal that took place in Pennsylvania during the summer of 1970. This variation came out of a brainstorming session among the Washington D.C. chapter of IVAW earlier this year. The vets felt “tired of just being part of other people’s protest,” explained Adam Kokesh, a member of the D.C. chapter. IVAW, a national veterans organization founded in July of 2004, performed the first Operation First Casualty in D.C. this past March.

Update: Here is a flickr photoset from Joe Holmes of joe's nyc fame.

black flag

Black Flag at the Fireman's Hall in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. June 14, 1985. Henry was all giggly excited about his new back tattoo. Malcolm Tent tells me that Richard made the flag banner.

Click on the image to see more photos by Margaret Griffis.

[via Global Warming Your Cold Heart]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that the New York Police Department is in charge of deciding who is allowed to have a permit for political demonstrations and decides who gets a press pass for city press conferences?

Buy Art

Taken on the roof of the excellent party for Paige West's new book.

Hotel Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea Blog reports that the Bard family has been forced out of their management role. The family has been running it for over 100 years.

[photo from bwalsh on flickr]

Jonathan VanDyke at Pocket Utopia

Entrance of Pocket Utopia, with a salon poster intervention by Jonathan VanDyke

The page on ArtCal formerly know as "Williamsburg / Greenpoint" is now Williamsburg / Greenpoint / Bushwick, as the relentless march of gentrification means that many of the galleries that are interesting to James and me are increasingly distant from the Bedford and Lorimer stops. This doesn't mean we don't still have some favorites near those stops.

Here is an example: Brooklyn Fireproof now has an additional space in Bushwick called Temporary Storage that has a very interesting-looking show opening June 23rd.

gone-missing.jpg

"I Gave It Away"
Maria Dizzia, Jennifer R. Morris, Alison Weller
The Belt Theater
Photograph: Leslie Lyons

The Civilians are presenting Gone Missing at the Barrow Street Theatre (Barrow at Seventh Avenue) starting tonight. We've seen several incarnations of the play, and can't wait to see it again. I wrote about one performance in 2003. Note that the MP3s are gone since my bandwidth was getting killed from people hot-linking to my various files.

Here is a discount offer for friends of bloggy. Go to Broadway Offers and enter the discount code GMEMX24. That almost makes up for the extortionate fees Telecharge gets away with -- including a fee to email you a PDF of the tickets! The total charges were 25% of the $75 ticket price for 3 people! Check out this image:

telecharge.jpg

Jonathan VanDyke at Pocket Utopia

One of Jonathan VanDyke's "trees" at Pocket Utopia.

Read James's post for more information, and check out my flickr set.

daniel-isengart-museum-mile.jpg

Daniel Isengart at the 28th Museum Mile Festival, 2006

 

Tonight is Museum Mile, when 23 blocks of Fifth Avenue along Central Park are closed to cars and museums are open late with free admission. The website has more information.

Our friend Daniel Isengart (alias Madame Butterfly) will be singing German Cabaret songs (with David Pearl on keyboard) on the steps of the Neue Galerie. In case of rain, go find him inside the Neue, at Café Sabarsky.

Neue Galerie
86th and Fifth
6-9PM (three sets)
Corner of 86th and 5th

How can you not love a singer who puts this on his website?

In the fall of 2003, Isengart brought an exclusive version of his One Man Show (entitled "Liederabend") to Berlin's legendary Cabaret establishment Bar Jeder Vernunft. Embraced by enthusiastic audiences, the show ran for 3 consecutive weeks, puzzling the scene's conservatives and the press.

[photo provided by Daniel Isengart]

 

I stumbled across this on flickr and liked it.

Via Digby.

Abstinence-only sex education is basically another way to send tax dollars to right-wing fundamentalist organizations. Remind me again why I should be expected to donate time or money to the Democratic Party if this is what having a Democratic congressional majority brings us?

larissa-bates-20070609-2.jpg

 

I spotted this piece in the office at Monya Rowe Gallery yesterday. Go here to see a larger version. Other works from this series are in Larissa's solo show up now at Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles.

Williamsburg Giglio

The Dancing of the Giglio will take place this year on July 8th and 15th. Here is a link to a PDF with the schedule.

Someone sent me a link to a video that uses footage from the event in the original town of Nola, Italy.

sillmanbordowitz.jpg

 

This looks like a good thing to attend tonight. We're stopping by before hitting a play at Atlantic Theater. A.R.T. was the creation of the late, great Bill Bartman.

Please join us Thursday, June 7th from 5:00 – 7:00 pm at Printed Matter to celebrate the publication of the fourth volume of Between Artists: Amy Sillman & Gregg Bordowitz.

Between Artists is a series of small format, conversation based books edited by Alejandro Cesarco. The books document different positions and strategies of leading and up-and-coming contemporary artists.

Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue between 21st and 22nd streets. The artists will be present.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A.R.T. Press is the publishing arm of Art Resources Transfer, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt organization founded in 1987 and dedicated to establishing access to the arts through publishing and community-oriented distribution. Art Resources Transfer is committed to documenting and supporting artists’ voices and work, and to making these voices accessible to the broadest possible public. Since its founding, Art Resources Transfer has maintained two interconnected program areas: publishing (A.R.T. Press), and the free distribution of books to underserved communities (D.U.C. Program).

For additional information on these programs, as well as ordering this and other A.R.T. Press titles please visit http://artresourcestransfer.org/artpress.php.

Via Blentwell I found this mix which is made up of sounds found via shortwave plus other songs. Visit lowlightmixes to download it and see the track listing.

Reminder: The NURTUREart benefit is tomorrow (Monday) at CUE Art Foundation on 25th Street in Chelsea. Come see us and say hi!

Sphinx

 

Spotted at La Granja de San Ildefonso, only 34 miles north of Madrid.

It's happening this weekend, June 1-3. Check out the website for a map and schedule.

rune_olsen-Kissing_Wolves.jpg

Rune Olsen, Kissing Wolves

 

Our friend Rune Olsen's sculpture of "Kissing Wolves" goes on display today in a window at Saks Fifth Avenue, with the big reveal happening tonight from 7-9 at 49th and Fifth Avenue. It will be up through June 11.

If MoMA's not careful, Saks (despite having nothing on the site about Rune) may show more contemporary artists this year than they do. At least there is the Barbara London-curated "Automatic Update" coming soon.

This page is an archive of entries from June 2007 listed from newest to oldest.

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