Reckoning with Torture: Lincoln Center
Doug Liman to Direct Performance at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater

When: Tuesday, May 24 Where: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65 St., upper level (between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.), New York City What time:7 p.m.With Russell Banks, Col. Morris Davis, Peter Godwin, Beth Gutcheon, Rula Jebreal, Dahlia Lithwick, John Buffalo Mailer, Kati Marton, Jack Rice, Lili Taylor, Dianne Wiest, and others, with original artwork by Jenny Holzer. Tickets: $12 general; $9 students; $8 seniors; $7 ACLU/PEN/FSLC Members. More information and tickets at www.filmlinc.com/films/series/reckoning-with-torture

“Reckoning With Torture: Memos and Testimonies From the ‘War on Terror,’” an evening of readings from formerly secret government documents detailing the scope and human cost of the United States’ post-9/11 torture program

Acclaimed director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fair Game) will direct this performance of “Reckoning” for the stage and is filming the event for a future documentary. Celebrated writers including Russell Banks, Peter Godwin, Beth Gutcheon, Rula Jebreal, Dahlia Lithwick, John Buffalo Mailer, and Kati Marton will join actors Lili Taylor and Dianne Wiest, along with former CIA case officer Jack Rice and former military prosecutor Col. Morris Davis for readings from formerly secret government documents detailing the scope and disastrous human cost of the U.S. torture program. The artist Jenny Holzer, whose work was the subject of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2009, has created original artwork for the “Reckoning” project.

Affordable Housing with The Actors Fund

Come learn about how to apply for housing opportunities through The Actors Fund, including The Schermerhorn, a permanent housing residence in downtown Brooklyn with reserved affordable space for actors and entertainment professionals. The Schermerhorn is co-sponsored by Common Ground and the The Actors Fund.

Housing at the The Schermerhorn is available to actors,screenwriters, musicians, dancers, editors, composers, set designers, producers, singers, directors and other performing arts and entertainment professionals. (READ MORE.)

WHERE: The Schermerhorn, 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Map.

WHEN: Tuesday, May 24th
Doors open and networking, 6:00-6:30 pm
Presentation and Q&A, 6:30-7:30 pm

The F Word
The Legacy: Feminism in Literature Today
24 May, 2 p.m., Book Expo America, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 W 34th Street, New York 10001

Julie Otsuka, Francine Prose and Karen Russell talk about which writers passed feminism down to them, and what the word means to them today. For tickets, visit http://www.bookexpoamerica.com.

The F Word Launch Party in NYC
25 May, 6.30 p.m., Paragraph, 35 W 14th Street, New York 10011

Join Julie Otsuka and Francine Prose to celebrate the launch of the issue. (READ MORE.)

NEBULOUS TUSSLES@ CULTUREFIX.
On May 25th in 1977, Star Wars came out in the theaters. I saw it in a drive-in theater two years later. And now I couldn’t care less. This is so much more exciting:
CULTUREfix & Jonathan Wood Vincent present:
NEBULOUS TUSSLES!
a night of unique song and dance
First: there will be:
Self-obsessed Jonathan Wood Vincent, playing the accordion and talking story-like about things of no particular importance just to wet your bustles.
Then: Enid Ellen, http://www.myspace.com/enidellen
In 2008, Enid Ellen was born: “I was writing poetry about specific men, and channeling a woman’s [point of] view,” says David Mramor about the feminine, earthly perspective that led him and pianist Greg Potter to create the songs on Enid Ellen’s debut album, Cannibal Disease. “There was a lot of anger and Mother Nature came forth and needed a vessel to speak through.” (READ MORE.)

A Temporary Garden, Gonzalo Puch @ JULIE SAUL
May 26-July 1, 2011
Reception for the artist, Thursday, May 26th, 6-8pm

Gonzalo Puch lives in Madrid, teaches at the University in Cuenca, and is a native of Sevilla. He creates situations or “incidents”, generally in neutral environments such as classrooms, or his own apartment, which he then records photographically and presents as large, color photographic prints. Although his working methods and environment are hermetic, the work itself addresses and tries to make order of the chaos of the world. His themes are linked to various traditional academic subjects such as math, science, music, biology and environmental studies. The settings are sparse and practical, well lit and benign. Recently he has been working in the landscape more immediately addressing environmental themes. However, the events taking place are inscrutable rituals or quiet procedures which are both serious and comic. They appear to have their own logic in which we can recognize the elements, but not their organization, like words without syntax.

Beginning in the fall of 2010, Puch maintained a year long artist’s residency at Location One in New York. As the title of the resulting series.A Temporary Garden suggests, Puch’s new work draws on the world of plants for its operative leit-motif. Leafy plants combine with busy line-drawings and assembled objects in one photograph; a bell pepper is carved into an ephemeral sculpture in another; and in yet another a twig and bits of colored thread are precariously organized into an image that brings to mind the traditional Chinese landscape drawing. In A Temporary Garden the line between the natural world and the world of artistic creation is not so much blurred as bridged — as it is in fact in any garden. (READ MORE.)

EVENTS AT THE OBSERVATORY

A Virtual Tour of the Anatomical Collections of the University of Groningen
An illustrated lecture with Dr. Rolf ter Sluis, Curator and Director of the Groningen University Museum

Date: Tuesday, May 24th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight, join Dr. Rolf ter Sluis--curator and director of the Netherlands based Groningen University Museum–for a virtual tour of the museum’s historic and amazing anatomy and pathology collections. The majority of the collection consists of preparations in spirit, but also includes dry preparations where the veins have been injected with coloured wax, wax and Papier-mâché models, skeletons and skulls, preserved tattooed skin, and much more. (READ MORE.)

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Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man’s Quest to Preserve the World’s Great Animals
An illustrated lecture and book signing with author Jay Kirk
Date: Thursday, May 26th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
***Books will be available for sale and signing

During the golden age of safaris in the early twentieth century, one man set out to preserve Africa’s great beasts. In his new book Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man’s Quest to Preserve the World’s Great Animals, Jay Kirk details the life and adventures of naturalist and taxidermist Carl Akeley, the brooding genius who revolutionized taxidermy and created the famed African Hall we visit today at New York’s Museum of Natural History. The Gilded Age was drawing to a close, and with it came the realization that men may have hunted certain species into oblivion. Renowned taxidermist Carl Akeley joined the hunters rushing to Africa, where he risked death time and again as he stalked animals for his dioramas and hobnobbed with outsized personalities of the era such as Theodore Roosevelt and P. T. Barnum. In a tale of art, science, courage, and romance, Jay Kirk resurrects a legend and illuminates a fateful turning point when Americans had to decide whether to save nature, to destroy it, or to just stare at it under glass. (READ MORE.)

SOUNDTRACK SERIES W/DANA ROSSI @LE POISSON ROUGE.

Dana Rossi hosts a monthly merging of stories and songs in this legendary music venue. Six artists–writers, comics, actors and musicians–tell the stories they associate with songs of their choosing. There’s the song, the story behind the song, and the story inspired by the song. We’re the third one.

The Vinyl Frontier
Tickets are $10 online and at the door Buy tickets here
Thursday May 26th 2011 7:00 PM

At the dawn of the 21st century, renegade toy designers, bored with the G.I. Joe status quo, boldly remixed and reassembled the toys of their parent’s generation. Birthing a new format of toy and medium of artistic expression, these artists were the first to explore The Vinyl Frontier. A world where Art is Fun!

By exploring a landscape inhabited by a wide range of artists, their creations, and obsessive collectors, the documentary examines the hybrid objects’ artistic and commercial value, as well as the creative process of art-toy making. The Vinyl Frontier is a comprehensive look at a fresh and exciting art movement that anyone young at heart and imaginative can enjoy. (READ MORE.)

Photo Courtesy of Paper Magazine

CLOSING PARTY! OLEK’s Knitting is for Pus****
Friday May 27 6-9pm

See “Knitting is for Pus****” for the last time (in NYC) and like never before… with a **SPECIAL BLACK LIGHT PRESENTATION!**

On Friday May 27th, 2011 Christopher Henry Gallery NYC will host a Closing Party for Celebrity Artist OLEK. Olek’s acclaimed installation “Knitting is for Pus****” has created a total sensation since it 1st opened back in September 2010. It traveled to SCOPE MIAMI, and was extended repeatedly due to pop…ular demand and endless press requests… next it will be highlighted in a traveling museum show called “40 Under 40″ opening at The SMITHSONIAN Museum in 2012!

VIDEOROVER: Season II
Curated by: Rachel Steinberg
May 27 – Dec 17, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, May 27, 7-9 PM
Screening begins at 8 PM
910 Grand St
Brooklyn, NY

NURTUREart Non-Profit is pleased to present VIDEOROVER: Season II, the second installment of its semi-annual video series. VIDEOROVER: Season II is curated by Rachel Steinberg and features artists: Fatima Al Qadiri and Lyndsy Welgos, Cecilia Bonilla, Juan Pablo Echeverri, Derek Larson, Dana Levy, Pernille With Madsen, Colin Snapp, and JULIACKS.

VIDEOROVER seeks to present a wide range of works from artists locally and internationally who are all working to expand the perceptual limitations of video. This season’s selection aims to disorient viewers by removing an essential reality context, only to redeposit them into seemingly familiar settings.

Dana Levy, Fatima Al Qadiri and Lyndsy Welgos explore the pluralism of eastern and western conventions by looking at traditions through a contemporary perspective. Cecilia Bonilla examines our relationships to the seductive nature of commercial images of women through minimal manipulation, while Juan Pablo Echeverri shows us a self-projected fantasy of mass-produced femininity. Colin Snapp acts as a ‘journalist’ of sorts, documenting moments of real-time, but relieving the viewer of imposed intentions. Pernille With Madsen dizzies and disorients us with a vision of how to imagine architectural surroundings. Derek Larson’s playful experimentations extend through other worldly humor while JULIACKS’ narrative pulls back and forth between a character’s inner psyche and external world. (READ MORE.)

Annual End-of-the-Season Poets’ Potluck
FRIDAY MAY 27 / 10PM

Come celebrate the end of another season at the Poetry Project!  The Poets’ Potluck is an opportunity for New York City’s poetry community(ies) to come together for an evening of readings, performances, and delicious food.  An array of writers from the Poetry Project series as well as other local reading series will read/perform their work.  Any one interested in bringing a dish for the potluck will contribute to an amazing feast.  If you’re interested in bringing food, please email Brett Price at fridaynightseriesp@gmail.com.