Go see Photo-Op, by Conrad Cummings, next week. It’s being presented on October 28-29. We went to a performance with excerpts, but the whole thing is being done on those days. For the visual arts crowd, your reason to see it: James Siena wrote the libretto.
Here is a video from the performance we attended. I recommend going to 21.5 minutes in to hear “By keeping things exactly the way that they are…” and 29 minutes in to the Purcell-meets-Gilbert-and-Sullivan aria “Would you die for me?”
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Joe Ovelman did one of his guerilla art walls in Chelsea early this morning on Tenth Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets. We photographed it around 5pm.
I’m sure James will have something up soon about it. We have both written about/photographed earlier actions. See: 1, 2, 3.
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I wish this had happened while we were in Portland!
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Macro/Micro. Maybe it’s my economics degree causing me to use such words, but that was in my thoughts after I left Echo Eggebrecht’s smart painting show at Sixtyseven Gallery. It’s the first show in their new space on 27th Street since moving from Williamsburg.
The paintings range in size from 18” × 18” to 36” × 48”, but I remembered them as quite large. I don’t think they reproduce that well in the images on the gallery web site, as there is a high level of detail in them. I had the gallery give me a CD of high quality images so I could provide some details.
The first one is Snake in the Grass (2004) , acrylic on panel, 24” × 36.”
You can’t easily see the interesting details, like the quality of the grass around the garden hose and the amazing needle-point-like fabrics on the clothes drying rack. Even with detail shots I have trouble getting my point across, but here goes.
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I’ll just do one more, but go see her show for the real thing. The last day is November 6th.
Stars and Stripes, 2003, acrylic on panel, 18” × 24”
Detail:
One last note. I attended the opening of the show, and the gallery had a big stack of press releases with the checklist on back available. Kudos to Ron and Claire. I hate going to openings and having to fight for information!
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Updated: I added one more detail image supplied by the gallery.
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I wrote about the show a couple of days ago. It has been extended a few days, until Sunday the 17th. Click here and use discount code “LYNCH” for $17 tickets.
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We saw The Civilians’ Nobody’s Lunch last Thursday, and I’ve been remiss in not writing it about it sooner.
A play at the place where Andy works, recommended by both Choire and me? How could you miss it? Besides, for the visual arts readers of this blog, the cast includes Alix Lambert.
I mentioned it earlier, but that was before we had seen it.
I think it is still more of a work in progress than Gone Missing, but that isn’t really a complaint for a work from a group like The Civilians. Heck, I saw Wooster Group’s “To you, the birdie” three times in various stages of completion.
The theme of Nobody’s Lunch is epistemology — how do we know what we know? The stories range from what we get when the cast cold-called every Jessica Lynch in a phone book anywhere in America, to the… spirit channeled by one of Damian Baldet’s characters who says alien creatures feed on our fear and love the world America has created. In a strong cast, he really stands out with a brilliant performance in the piece.
There is plenty of humor in the work, but there are also moments that made me pretty emotional. Christina Kirk’s character that tells us of her childhood experience in a cult is chilling. KJ Sanchez gives us part of an interview with her 73-year-old mother, and when it’s followed by Baron Vaughn singing “I want to die for something”, I will admit James and I got a bit teary.
In addition to a brilliant cast, Michael Friedman’s songs really stand out. I don’t have to tell anyone who knows me that I hate conventional musicals, but there are ones like Hedwig or Urinetown that I do like. Generally, they are ones with clever music that sounds as if it’s aware of what’s happpened since 1940 in music, and that has some political content. Michael’s lyrics are very smart, and when he pulls a line into a song that you heard a character speak earlier in the evening, it adds additional depth. He writes in a number of styles, and one of my favorites in this one is the Song of Progressive Disenchantment, performed by Caitlin Miller. As you might guess, it’s in the style of a Brecht/Weill song, such as Surabaya Johnny. It’s also hilarious.
I have information on discount tickets to see it:
Special 2-for-1 tickets to NOBODY’S LUNCH available until 10/14 (10/7 and
10/10 excluded). Special price available ONLY through PS 122 box office:
212.477.5288. Offer subject to availability.Use code: LUNCHFOR2
That Gone Missing link above is a post of mine that includes some MP3s of earlier songs by Michael.
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Champion Fine Art is now in Los Angeles, Culver City to be precise. Their first show, curated by Matt Johnson, opens October 29.
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They both close Saturday, so get on over there. Yancey Richardson is on 22nd Street in Chelsea.
Mitch Epstein’s show, titled Family Business, documents the collapse of his father’s furniture and real estate business in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It also becomes a document of the collapse of small businesses and old city downtowns. A number of the images would be moving without the background story, but they’re devastating as soon as you know it.
Flag, 2000, 30 × 40 inches, Chromogenic Print
Warehouse, 2000, 50 × 60 inches, Chromogenic Print
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Appropriately, the other show is Oraien Catledge’s Cabbagetown, with images from his book of the same name. Catledge photgraphed the people of Cabbagetown, a small, impoverished milltown not far from downtown Atlanta. The images are from the 80s, but look like WPA photographs of sharecroppers during the Depression.
[images from the gallery’s web site]
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Zach from LFL mentioned a culture blog I hadn’t heard of at the Echo Eggebrecht opening tonight: Scather. Add it to your list.
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