Two camera phone photos from tonight’s opening of Paper Rad at Foxy Production:
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Paper Rad @ Foxy Production
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Categories: Culture -
Pool Art Addict: A New York Underground Art Fair
Cool. A small art fair in a small new hotel (a Sheraton Four Points!) in Chelsea.
Pool Art Addict, May 13-16, see the web site.
Pool Art Addict: A New York Underground Art Fair, May 13-16, 2004, is set to premiere at the new Four Points Hotel, a needle-thin 22-story structure that went up last fall on a former parking lot at 160 West 25th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. The fair is organized by Frére Independent (headed by Thierry Alet, an artist and co-founder of NYArts Magazine), which has taken the top four floors of the hotel and lined up 20 independent exhibitors. Designed to bring little-known artists to public attention during the spring contemporary art auctions, Pool Art Addict includes exhibitors such as the Nigerian Embassy, which is showing works by Ibiyinka Olufemi Alao; curator Amy Davila, who has organized an installation by Emily Lutzker; Le Triage Art Center from Paris, which is sponsoring Florent Mattei; and the Art & Culture/Anne-Marie Melster Gallery from Germany. General admission is $7; tickets to the opening night gala on May 13 are $30.
[via Artnet]
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Categories: Culture -
Get Your War On 34
Go here for the rest.
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Categories: War -
Last chance
Here is your “last chance” reminder on a couple of things.
The Civilians: Gone Missing
(Back: Jennifer Morris, Maria Dizzia, Trey Lyford; Front: Damian Baldet, Michael Esper, Alison Weller)First, think about joining us for The Civilians‘ benefit on Friday in Chinatown. I already wrote about it here.
I Miss You Alreaday, 2004
Tracey BaranSecond, April 17 is the last day of Tracey Baran‘s brilliant show at Leslie Tonkonow.
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Categories: Culture -
Mao’s official photographers
At ease: Hou Bo’s portrait of Mao and family at the seasideWhen Mao Zedong proclaimed his new Socialist China in October 1949 from the great gate of Tiananmen, he walked to the balcony’s edge, looked over to the cheering crowds, and called out: “Long live the people!” Moments later, he was captured by the photographer Hou Bo, in that now-famous image, as he declared into the microphone: “The Chinese people have stood up.”
In the photograph, we don’t see the Chinese people themselves, listening in the square below. Mention of them – and even the greeting Mao had used – would soon become subversive. The next time Tiananmen Square would hear “Long live the people!” was 40 years later, when it was shouted by students calling for democracy, shortly before the tanks moved in.
The photograph of Mao on the balcony can now be seen in a fascinating and disturbing exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, that is largely devoted to the work of Hou Bo and Xu Xiaobing, the husband-and-wife team who became Mao’s official photographers.
– Monster at the Beach, The Guardian, April 10, 2004
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19th Street assemblage
I think it’s just trash rather than a scatter art installation. As we walked by this someone was sitting nearby in his car, with the windows down, blasting Maria Callas singing Vissi d’arte (I have lived for art) from Tosca.
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Categories: Image -
The malling of NYC continues
From Crain’s:
Ian Schrager’s Paramount Hotel, at 245 W. 46th St., will be bought by the Hard Rock Hotel chain for $125 million. The deal is expected to close in June.
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Categories: NYC -
A little tussle regarding the cutting edge
However, not everyone is impressed with Williamsburg’s economic potential. Some, like Bellwether Gallery‘s director, Rebecca Smith, see more limitations than possibilities. “A lot of people think Williamsburg is cutting edge,” Smith says. “It’s not, it’s just low risk, without being particularly experimental.”
Frustrated with her inability to get Manhattan collectors to travel across the bridge, Smith is relocating to Chelsea, even though she runs one of the better-known galleries in the neighborhood.
Not surprisingly, many disagree with both her claims of poor foot traffic and her opinion of Williamsburg.
“She’s going where the money is, and the power,” artist Powhida says. “I don’t blame her for wanting to sell her artists, but how good they are is up for debate. She’s not all that cutting edge either.”
Newsday/AP – Williamsburg comes of age
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Categories: Culture -
Joe Ovelman – the buzz
detail of installation of C-prints
Joe Ovelman has a solo show at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery.
James has a post up about the show.
It’s now listed as a pick on the Village Voice web site, plus Paige West (Art Addict) and the art weblog have mentioned him.
Go see it! We have already decided to buy a few works in the show.
[photo from James’s write-up]
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Categories: Culture -
Les Brutes Épaisses
Last September, James and I spent much of a week hanging out with two charming young French men, Nicolas Camiade and François Charpentier. They went to art school together, and are in a band called Les Brutes Épaisses, which means something like “brutish louts.” The name is a joke, as it sounds like a punk band but their music is more of a smart contemporary take on the Piazzolla / Weill strand of music, which isn’t quite jazz or classical or pop. It’s a little like the area that artists such as Blue Flower and Cynthia Hopkins are exploring. They sent us their beautifully designed CD, titled en public, after returning to France. We were thrilled to find out how great it is, since meeting an artist and liking them personally before seeing or hearing the work is often scary.
I have uploaded some MP3s for you to check out. François is the lead singer for all of the songs except Les bonbons à la menthe, which features the voice of Nicolas. François is rather shy in person, so it’s fun to hear him turn into this outgoing sexy French singer on disc.
- Le coffre à jouets (2.8MB) – to illustrate the Piazzolla/Weill thing
- Ma peine (2.4MB) – probably the song that uses the “edgiest” instrumental work
- Les bonbons à la menthe (1.3MB)
- Les moches (10.8MB) – This a big file, but worth it. The first part is a lovely duet between François and Laetitia Marty, but it has a secret bonus at the end. After a really long pause, they return to sing a parody of a Brazilian song in the style of Antonio Carlos Jobim or Joao Gilberto. It’s very funny, with them improvising in French with Brazilian accents.
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Categories: Music