Filed under: ART, DESIGN, INTERVIEWS, WHERE (we) LIVE, WOOD | Tags: 19th, 20th, 21ST, 22, 22nd, BAM, brooklyn, december, funiture, interview, live, magazine, new, prview, the, valencia, victoria, we, where, with, woodworking, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA VALENCIA
By Nell Whittaker
THE 22: I wondered if you could expand a little on how you treat disused spaces and how you approach the challenge of trying to fill them with something suitable.
VICTORIA VALENCIA: A disused space to me; a space you want more from. Sometimes you want a space to hold a feeling, a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is function. Function of a piece can come in many forms. To be pleasing to the eye, hold a feeling or memory, to sit on, rest and think, have a meal, a drink, or get to work. I make things that fill those spaces. My work holds stories, those of its life before this form, marks from who used them before. The stories of why these trees have fallen.
22: Your designs are like a meeting between the natural and the man-made. If the raw materials you use dictate the shape of your final product (‘ the imperfect intentions of [the] varied sourced material’), what purpose does the man-made serve?
VV: I respect its original form, not trying to make it too different. The raw materials are beautiful in themselves. A slab of tree can tell you why it fell or how fast it grew, marks of age. The raw material is nature’s art. The me-made is my art. Its my compliment to the nature.
22: What affect does Brooklyn have on what you create?
VV: I love this place. I use the wood from old watertowers. I use trees that grew in Brooklyn and fell in Brooklyn. I ride my bike through its streets and find inspiration.My friends and fellow artist in Brooklyn inspire me.
22: What is unique about your creative process – what do you think will make it interesting to an audience who has no familiarity already with your work?
VV: I work backwards sometimes…sometimes, I have the material before the design. I have a stack of wood that I’ve collected and been given. I get inspired and it moves forward. If I design (think too much) nothing happens.
22: On the other hand, do you think the audience or the atmosphere will affect what you are creating on the night itself?
VV: Yes. I have ideas of what I can do on that Saturday night, but no plan. I may just be handplaning the whole time. Working a rough piece towards a finished state.
22: Do you have a clear idea of what it is you will make at the show?
VV: Something with wood since it would be a bit complicated to weld on stage. My clear idea is I want to be comfortable, I want to have fun, I want to play.
22: Do you think that being self-taught has enabled you to work without restrictions?
VV: Its enabled me to be in my process. I learn something and I work at it until I feel I’ve improved. Then I move on to the next skill. I’m learning slow but well. I learn what intrigues me, while bypassing the “shoulds.” I learn from the materials, my peers and my experience.
22: What impact do you think a conventional education in furniture making would have had on your work?
VV: I wouldn’t have had the experiences I’ve had. I wouldn’t have lived in many places and found my passion through my love for challenges. I would have judged myself because I am not a traditional classroom student. I probably would know more design history. I would be been more in debt and felt like I need to make my work rather than want to.
Filed under: ART, CERAMICS, INTERVIEWS, SCULPTURE, WHERE (we) LIVE | Tags: 19-22nd, 2, BAM, BAM next wave festival, brooklyn, Dec, greif, interview, live, magazine, new, paula, preview, we, where, with, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW WITH PAULA GREIF
By Nell Whittaker
The 22: Do you go into the studio with an idea in mind or do you see what comes to you?
Paula Greif: I work from drawings. I see shapes I like and try to build my versions of them out of clay. My original motivation was to remake everything I had in my kitchen by hand. I took a ceramics class on Columbia street in Red Hook. These are the first things I made. I look at a lot of folk pottery and try to keep things simple and graphic. I was a graphic designer and it is hard for me to go outside the lines.
22: You mention on your website that you listen to the trevor wilkins calypso radio show while you work. do you notice your mood or the music you listen to directly affecting what you create?
PG: I don’t listen to a lot of recorded music but I love DJs like Trevor Wilkins. His obsession with the details and the history are right up my alley. It’s live radio that I love. The Trevor Wilkins show is very emotional and comforting and also quite funny. Its the music of a diaspora. The way he presents the songs and shouts “we’re going home!” It’s a deeply brooklyn kind of show. When I am alone and working, he keeps me company at night and makes me laugh out loud in the studio. I can’t say enough about that show! I also listen to Felix Hernandez Rhythym Review religiously on Saturdays and Sundays when I am working. Felix is another DJ that plays music that always hits me on an emotional level. Every song he plays just knocks me out. Sometimes to the point of distraction! I love his worldview. Something about these guys, these completists, who live their lives around a very specific musical period, their enthusiasm is completely heartwarming and rollicking.
22: What is it that you think makes your artwork work alongside music?
PG: Actually I was shocked to get a call from So Percussion. I’ve been listening to the sounds in my shared ceramic studio like water splashing, dripping, sounds spinning of the wheel, wedging the clay is all very rhythmic…and these sound are general to most makers of things. Workaday stuff really, in the best sense.
22: Equally, do you think opening up your creative process to the audience will affect what you are creating on the night itself? Or do you have a clear idea of what it is you will make?
PG: I’m hoping to make the biggest things I can so the process can be seen and understood. I am planning to throw in sections and build composited pieces and paint with slip and colored oxides. Time is a big part of ceramics…things have to be dry but not too dry. I am trying to figure out what can happen in an hour that feels rhythmic and makes good sounds and looks cool.
22: The idea underlying this project is that of a strong sense of place Brooklyn being home for all the artists involved. Your ceramics however look as if they have been influenced by natural objects (for example, the spoon with the handle that looks like a branch or antlers.) How does the city influence your work?
PG: The natural world does not affect my work at all! I’m an urban potter…my heroes are Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, both Viennese refugees to London during World War ll…but I also look at a lot of useful and simple folk pottery…mostly at the Met and the Brooklyn museum. I’m a brooklyn native, I was born in brighton beach and I took my first art classes at the Brooklyn museum when I was a child. I am attracted to the primitive and basic rather that the natural. Maybe because I’m not that skilled of a potter. I’m really new at it. As a designer i’m always trying to control my environment. I have to let go of the fantasy of better living through design. Better living that comes from soulfulness and humility, not stuff, but I do like the feeling of drinking a glass of wine from a cup I made myself.
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS, PREVIEWS, WHERE (we) LIVE | Tags: 19th, 20th, 21ST, 22, 22nd, BAM, brooklyn, Dec, interview, live, magazine, new, preview, riccardo, the, vecchio, we, where, with, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW WITH RICCARDO VECCHIO
By Nell Whittaker
The 22: Portrait painting is often thought of as a sort of intimacy between the artist and his subject. How did you initially respond to the idea of opening that up to an audience?
RV: I was terrified. At the same time, because it will be a new experience for me, I am curious to see how it will influence my process. I am sure the company of the musicians will make me feel at ease.
22: What similarities would you draw between your creative process and music? What do you think links visual artwork (in particular, your artwork) to music?
RV: Perhaps because I am also a drummer, and because I frequently paint while listening to music, I find the process very similar. Especially with percussion instruments, I find the ebb and flow of the rhythm analogous to the way I paint. The accumulation of details and contrasting empty spaces in painted surface mimic the acceleration and deceleration of a beat.
22: Do you think the audience or the atmosphere will affect what you are creating on the night itself? Or do you have a clear idea of what it is you will make?
RV: While a part of the painting will be planned out ahead of time, some parts will be blank and left to be finished during the performance. The final result will certainly be affected by the evening’s performance. It will be interesting to deal with the unpredictability of a fairly short performance. It will be crucial to quickly recognize and save “happy painting accidents,” and quickly paint over a mistake which could potentially lessen the final effect.
22: What is it that you think makes your artwork work alongside music?
RV: I think all artwork can work alongside music. If we are talking about my work in particular, I feel there is almost a structural similarity to my paintings and to the way music looks in written form. The disassembled architectural structures I often use in my work remind me of the dance of notes, keys, time signatures, ornaments and clefs on the staff lines.
22: Do you listen to music as you paint? If so, what music helps to put you in the “right” frame of mind for painting?
RV: I frequently listen to music while I work. But depending on the stage of completion of the piece I might vary the music. For example, in the beginning of a piece I might listen to more orchestral music, while at the end stages I’m more likely to gravitate to music with single instruments and no vocals at all. Almost an anachronistic dynamic. The emptier the canvas the louder and richer the music, the richer fuller the canvas the quieter and minimal the music.
Filed under: THE WEEK/THE WEEKEND | Tags: ABSTRACTIONISTS, ACME Jozef, against, all, an, and, Antarctica, ANTONIO’S, art, arts, at, austin, BABYLON Chris, Bakery, BAM, Beale, beer, bittle, brooks, Cheon, chris, club, Cochrane, collecting, CollectiveThomas, complete, Construction Guo, Crane Tim, Crosthwaite, Dagley, Destination, different, Encounters, end, ensemble, Erik, evening, eyes, family, Fashion’s, Fest, Gifted, good, grand, Happening, Herndon, hess, HOLLY, Holograms, Hongwei, Insurrectional, Int’l, international, is, Jacaszek, job, LARSEN, Lee, Lendvay, light, limb, live, LOPEZ, los, love, Lucas, Luck, makeshift Mark, manhattan, Manicures, Mathis, matt, mbiraNYC, medium, Miriam, moon, more, my, Ne, new, next, night, ny, of, on, Onda, opening, OTHERS Secret, out, painting, Parker, Parkins, performances, phantom, Poetic, poland, Powers, pyo, quartets, quinn, Regreso, reich, Revolt, Roda, Rvng, Salzwedel Rosemary, Samba, Same Hugo, science, september, small, speegle, string, structural, Surge, SYMPOSIUM, Talented, That Ryan, the, Thousand, three, thursday, trains, Triple, tworks, Ursuta, USA, van, version, VI El, Wissem and Noveller THE, word, world, Worth, WTC
VALERIE HEGARTY: Figure, Flowers, Fruit
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
September 9, 2012 – October 21, 2012
In this exhibition, Hegarty takes her point of departure from themes of consumption, lust,reproduction and greed. Playing with traditional still life and figurative painting, Hegarty cites as inspiration the cult comedy Little Shop of Horrors along with current newsheadlines concerning the enhancement and mutilation of body and food. These four new paintings metamorphose sculpturally, as the paintings burst, grow and propagate in bodily gestures, leading the overgrowth to travel ominously beyond the canvas boundaries.
Strange Tales of Liaozhai
Friday, September 7
HERE Arts Center
Through choreography and manipulation, master puppeteer Hanne Tierney conducts an intricate counterweight system of over 100 strings, transforming a full stage of inanimate objects into the players of two emotionally charged tales.
Nancy Davidson: Dustup
Betty Cunningham Gallery
9/6/2012 To 10/6/2012
Betty Cuningham Gallery is pleased to open its 2012-13 season with Nancy Davidson, featuring her inflatable sculpture, Dustup. This will be the artist’s first exhibition at the Gallery. The artist will be present for the opening reception. Davidson, a sculptor and video artist, is known for her unique media – larger than life inflatable sculptures – and for her interest in American icons and gender issues. In 2005 with the support of a Creative Capital Grant, she began her exploration on the myth and reality of the cowgirl. After researching western women’s history Davidson focused on the rodeo cowgirl.
Thomas Allen: Beautiful Evidence
Sep 9 - Oct 14, 2012
Foley Gallery
Allen’s signature use of cutting and repurposing book illustrations has not vanished. Instead of the pulp fiction genre, Allen plays with 50’s era versions of clean cut youths and domesticated moms. His unmistakable talent for creating the illusion of 3D in photography with his deft cuts and crimps, establishes a magical world in which a boy and girl play tag creating their own kind of electricity, a milkman makes a very special delivery in space, young toughs play marbles with the solar system and a mother busily sews her own version of “string theory.”
David Stoupakis/Matthew Bone
September 8th – October 19th
Last Rites Gallery
David Stoupakis is an internationally recognized painter who creates eerie portraits of beings that appear wise beyond their years. The self-taught artist adds both haunting imagery and grim fairytale-like elements to his work to juxtapoz childhood innocence with macabre surroundings. InAshes to Sorrow, his new collection of drawings and oil paintings, David creates a continuation of his previous body of work-Walking with These Shadows./With his new work, Matthew Bone continues to explore the visual language he created as a child when massive unmonitored media consumption informed his worldview. A latchkey kid from an early age, pornography, comic books and movies formulated his ideas of sexuality, masculinity, and femininity- in essence reality and perception were sculpted by imaginary worlds steeped heavily in sensationalistic imagery.
Filed under: THE WEEK/THE WEEKEND | Tags: 13, 2011, 51 Whiting, ad, adrienne, anatomy, and, art, artists HUGO, arts, artwork, Awards, BAM, BEFORE, beside, Body FACULTY, Breakthroughs The, Broadsides, brooklyn, by, cameron, Chaize, Coletti, complete, Contemporary, Copp, Corina, Cornelia, david, DAY Freaks, de, dickinson, doing, DUBKNOWDUB, EDWARDS, Enigmatic, ephemeral, ESTEBAN Proposition, Fest DEMENTIA, folk, for, Fraser, GalaBrooklyn, GantertDie, Graffiti The, Ideas, indie, Interval, It Kathleen, Jacqueline, Javier LIVE, jessicia, KONTRABAND Ben, KotikHeadcase Christian, Larsen MAX, Launch, Less, like, live, Living Conversation, Mean, more, Motion Book, museums, music, new, next, of, on, one, only, opening, Paolo, Paradis PDFCurated, party, Patrick, Plaza, popular, Pornography, presents, projects Brooklyn, QUARTET Big, reading, Reading Roots, Really, reception, resident, Rivals MATA, roulette, Rucci Tondo LJOVA, Ruckus The, Score, screen, SeriesPoets, sex, short, SHOWCASE John, simono, site, Spooktacular Tom, St AA, Story American, strange, the, unusual, victorian, Waters In, week Center, Whoreoween, with, wolf, Works DEATHBLOW, writers, you
MONDAY:BROOKLYN FOLK ARTS DAY |
Filed under: THE WEEK/THE WEEKEND | Tags: 06, 100 Dan, 10 Michel, 16th, 2" "THE, 24, 26, 8, a, abc, ABRONS, Accents, action, air, ALCANTARA, Amanda, amateur, an, and, annual, art, at, avant, BAM, bank, bas, Bilal COMA, BIT On, bob, books, BPC, brooklyn, by, call, Canada, celebration, center, City FACTS, Climate, closing, Coney, conversation, Corps, Costello, Dacia, Days, de, death, deep, DEXTER, digital, DOOM, dr, drawings, dylan, e, Elected, Episodes, Equinox, evening, exhibition, eyebeam, fair, fall, Fallen An, Felix, festival, Festival INVESTIGATING, film, Finding, Food Secret, for, Foreman HEATHER, Formless Synthesis, Forward, friday, gagosian, Galapagos Carsten, gallery, garde, GBM, Gellochio Julian, Groisman, GROUND The, GUILT Ziegfeld, Hammond, happiness, his, hosted, human, IBM, Illusions, Imagination 11th, improvisational, in, investigation, island, Jeju, KAPUSTNIK, korean, Kubin Conni, Lab CCCP, LEMONADE, life, little, Lorber, LOVEBOAT, made, man, Michel, Miscommunications, MOFODISHU, MORT, musical, Myers Michael, Nash Walking, new, Nicolai, night, no., Nuyorican, Obstructed, Oct, of, off, Officials, Olson, on, Ongoing, open, Opera Science, orchestra, P, Pace, PaintingJENNY, Palimpsest “This, Paradise” Moviehouse, Past PEDRO, Peace Manifesto, PHENOMENA Knowing, Pionier, poetry, Policing, presents, prints, Prisons, Professions Arias, Project‘s, psychological, Public Video, queer, radio, raze, real, rebirth, reception, RECOLLECTIONS, red, resistance, restaurant, Restaurant Jazzoetry, richard, Rick, rio, rock, Rubulad, running, ryan, S, Salomés, SANDS, SAVILLE, SCHIFF, school, Score, self, sept, show, SHY, side, Sketchy, Skips, SkowheganPERFORMS Welcome, Slam Jane, Stage Atys, street, Structures Petite, Swamp, Sword, take, Taping, TAR, Teacher, TENRI, the, things, till, time, to, TV, twist, Various KOCHO SUPER, Various NYCFoodFilmFestival2011 Time, Vaudeville, video_dumbo Get, visions, Wafaa, walls, weird, with, Women 10, Women Dikanda STACY, word, WRAITH, WRYTHM, ZEBULON
KRONOS QUARTET: Awakening: A Musical Meditation on the Anniversary of 9/11
Part of the 2011 Next Wave Festival
Sep 21—24, 2011 at 7:30pm
Pioneering contemporary music ensemble Kronos Quartet (More Than Four, 2007 Next Wave) returns to BAM with a heartfelt program comprising 12 compositions—including works by Michael Gordon, Terry Riley, Osvaldo Golijov and Gustavo Santaolalla, and John Oswald—plus gripping arrangements of traditional songs from around the globe. This stirring collection of works reflects upon those instances where traditional language fails us, and music steps in to restore what violinist David Harrington refers to as “equilibrium in the midst of imbalance.”
Read the full program here.
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ARIAS WITH A TWIST @ABRONS ART CENTER.
September 14-October 16
Wednesday-Saturday | 8 pm
Saturday Late Show | 10:30 pm
Sunday | 7 pm
This updated version of the original deliriously madcap fantasy once again features the soaring song stylings of demented diva Joey Arias surrounded by an eye-popping theatrical extravaganza conjured by a team of puppeteers under the direction of Basil Twist. Channeling lurid celluloid dreams, macabre nightmares and bizarre premonitions, the adventure begins with an alien abduction and concludes with a stupendous Busby Berkeley-esque finale. Along the way, the throaty chanteuse belts out pop, rock and jazz standards in addition to some original tunes by Alex Gifford as Twist and company work their magic with vintage marionettes, anatomically correct puppets and fantastical scenic elements.
