Lord, forgive all my foxiness. Remember us humans, us cruising
to nightclubs and not braking to dead stop, us stepping—
no hand rail—in black pumps and boot-cuts up to the slut box
then forgetting to dance. Us keeping secrets. Our leaving no tip.
Sometimes in a good fuck I speak carpentry—spackle and jack tape, Jesus rib, caulk. I awoke this morning naked as a jay bird. Buzzed,
wearing glasses, I held on to no one but my body pillow, Sacagawea,
keeping her warm. Almost a godsend, God, almost.
I confess I want guidance. Guide me to the country of Charity,
that hard-knuckled woman, her deep ankle boots. Can she have red
hair or is black a must? I imagine her hips as I often do hips—chisels
and axes that hack at a crowd thralled to some DJ.
This woman shapes through body’s rhythm her own thrumming
god. Fox beast, incisors, torso warped thing. Its own twisted shape a way
of confessing. To choke without a throat, slowly, on praise.
From what is this thing we have gnawed happiness? How
has it tasted all of our lives? God of Smudged Chins. God of
Half-Virgins. We wedge fingernails into the gaps between backboard screws
and corner beams. With a wonderful quickness we know bed as world.
God, what I’m saying is that I suspect heaven
was planned with a right hand drawing blueprints on napkins,
the left hand still-buried in some idle fur.
Forgive me but nightclubs are like your mouth, like my bedroom
with its ceiling too low. The off-kilter whir of fan blades replace
any belief in collar-starch morals. Forgive the room’s stucco.
Forgive the drunk nothings this tile floor revibes. No,
nothing’s wrong with yesterday’s meats. Sometimes, though, I am
little more than gaps found between words—good and then morning. A click-click that lingers. I cannot tell if its high heels or teeth.
If I am flea, Lord, and not a fox, I insist one thing: you must bite, hard.
David Antonio Moody writes out of Tallahassee where he pursues a PhD in poetics at FSU. Former poetry editor for SawPalm and Juked, David is production editor of Cortland Review and Southeast Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sweet, Eleven Eleven and Spillway.
While you are enjoying your spoils from the upcoming NYCC 2012 weekend, make sure to take a break from the Javits Center mayhem for a spectacular evening at the opening of A Postcard from New Yorkshire, featuring new artwork by Dok A. The steampunk extraordinaire is getting adventurous with his work in the show, pushing boundaries and showcasing newly acquired skills. Anticipate intricate details in custom toys as well as ink drawings. Show opens on Friday, October 12 from 7 – 10pm. Dok A will be in attendance at the opening and make sure to welcome him because this will mark his first visit to NYC. Show runs until November 11.
A group of young noise-rock musicians moves into a old, ghost-filled house and sets up shop. Though the spooks are at first rattled by the blasts of guitar feedback and unhinged drummery, they soon begin to share their own beautiful, otherworldly melodies with the band and discover a musical common ground. As the group, ghosts included, fills the neighborhood with strange, electrifying sounds, curious neighbors and passers-by find themselves drawn to the rumbling, hypnotic rhythms emanating from the old dwelling. And so you find yourself here, outside the house, where a sort of Tim Burton block party is unfolding. Come on inside. The Octopus Project is just getting started…
A science book like no other, The Where, The Why, and The How turns loose 75 of today’s hottest artists onto life’s vast questions, from how we got here to where we are going. Inside these pages some of the biggest (and smallest) mysteries of the natural world are explained in essays by real working scientists, which are then illustrated by artists given free rein to be as literal or as imaginative as they like. The result is a celebration of the wonder that inspires every new discovery.
This is one of the museum’s most popular annual seasonal exhibitions. Butterflies and moths make up a large group of insects known as the Order Lepidoptera (lep-i-DOP-ter-ah). The name–from the Greek lepido, “scale”, and ptera, “wings”–refers to a prominent feature of adult butterflies and moths, the tiny scales that cover the wings and the rest of the body.
98.1034 Bottles of Beer on the Wall provides drunken encounters with compulsive systems. A program continually preens itself, inserting lines of code to change its visual representation, but along the way, introducing glitches and new patterns of behavior. A therapist program tries to dispense advice as her logic slowly breaks down. Sound editing software turns simple geometric shapes into hallucinatory landscapes. Photoshop generates intricate patterns in an attempt to hide visual compression. A book displays the abuses and absurdities of the DNS system, an addressing apparatus that has seemingly exhausted meaningful combinations of English words.
Picasso Black and White is the first exhibition to explore a remarkable focus that occupied the great Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, throughout his prolific career: the use of black and white. Few artists have exerted as considerable an influence over subsequent generations as Picasso, one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art. While his work is often seen through the lens of his diverse styles and subjects—his Blue and Rose periods, pioneering investigations into Cubism, neoclassical figurative paintings, and explorations in Surrealism, for example, or the forceful and somber scenes depicting the atrocities of war, the allegorical still lifes, the vivid interpretations of arthistorical masterpieces, and the highly sexualized canvases of his twilight years—the recurrent motif of black, white, and gray is frequently overlooked.
Following his acclaimed project SEEK, featured as a 2011 TED Talk, Hembrey’s new work attempts to visualize his 20 year exploration of dark matter and dark energy (scientifically hypothesized to comprise over 95% of the cosmos). Hembrey’s paintings and sculptures are a collective meditation on the unseen structure of our universe. Painted with trompe l’oeil technique, the series Unstill Lifes attempts to visualize the tangible structures of matter pared down to bits. Ghostly wisps of smoke appear to the viewer at certain angles and improbable assemblages of matches, tree branches, and string appear to float off of the inky blackground.
Larsen is an accomplished painter who has always challenged herself to invent new styles and ways of composition. Her recent oeuvre marks a synopsis of previous works ranging between abstraction and figuration. Using modernist Russian constructivist paintings as a point of departure for numerous compositions, she also engages ideas of reverse perspective and conflicting vanishing points, as can be found in Japanese narrative scrolls. Her pool of inspirations is vast, ranging from masterpieces of Renaissance through 20th century art, to traditional Japanese puppet theatre, to photographs she has taken of classrooms and faculty meetings during her 35-year long Professorship in Florida.
Roulette with Ghostly International and Rvng Intl. are pleased to present an evening of electroacoustic music, featuring a rare US performance by Polish composer Jacaszek and San Francisco based Holly Herndon.
Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of eleven 2012 still-life and jungle-landscape paintings by Erik Parker (b. 1968 Stuttgart, Germany; lives and works in New York City). Updating these traditional art-historical genres through the pictorial idioms and sly humor of satirical cartoons, psychedelia, and underground comic books, Parker’s paintings provide vistas into brilliantly colored worlds of semi-sentient flora and idiosyncratic geometries.
The members of Rusty Belle swagger between raw blues, tiny tangos, country waltzes and backyard symphonies. Sometimes a walk with the Roma, a twisted tale in metered time, or a yell-along-after-dinner drunken opera. A dance band that tries to tie your shoes together. The music is littered with dented paint cans, smashed up trashcan lids, old hacksaw blades, and broken glass. Like junkyard songbirds, they sing sweet through all the rubbage.
After seven years since Stephen Powers’ last solo exhibition in New York, Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures. In this new exhibition series, the prolific artist will present a panoramic assemblage of paintings that will occupy the entire breadth of the gallery. A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures will consist of a multitude of enamel on aluminum paintings, ranging from 10-x-8 inches to 10-x-10 feet.
Choreographer Jonah Bokaer and artist Anthony McCall explore total motion in this breathtaking collaboration that places dance within an installation built from shifting avenues of light and spatialized, sonic images. Featuring four dancers as well as a special appearance by Bokaer,ECLIPSE utilizes the unique flexibility of the Fishman Space, with a four-sided seating configuration to create an utterly intimate experience between artists and audience.
LONG DISTANCE POISON play live music & soundscape to the film. Composer David First will be sitting in with LONG DISTANCE POISON on Friday and TELECULT POWERS member Matthew Regula will be sitting in on Saturday.
The Shirey is pleased to present Bushwick Blackout, an immersive multi-media exhibition and video screening of luminous works that twinkle and glow in the dark.In this exhibition, traditional gallery lighting is abandoned. The only sources of light are ultraviolet lamps and the works themselves. Emerging from the walls, ceiling, and floors, the works create a three-dimensional constellation, encompassing the viewer and transforming the conventional gallery space into a spellbound landscape.
A multidisciplinary call-and-response experience, the FLASH POINT/ NYC ensemble of writers and composers interweave new hybrid texts, flash fiction, micro memoir and prose poems across the harmonic rhythms, inversions, melodies and lines of original live jazz. Synchronicities and spontaneities emerge, converge and diverge to cross genres, provoke tradition and explore the territories ahead.
Butoh Electra August 29 – September 8
Irondale Center The magnificent, intense and intelligent Butoh Electra is created and performed by the highly acclaimed ensemble, The Ume Group. A “beautiful and disturbing” piece (NYTheatre.com), Butoh Electra presents Sophocles’ Greek revenge tragedy as the story of a woman whose vibrant inner life is corrupted by the world of walking dead in which she lives.
Churner and Churner is pleased to present “On My Way Gone,” an exhibition of new work by Joanne Bittle. With an installation, over twenty-five paintings, and the artist’s first film, the exhibition is Bittle’s largest and most ambitious to date. This is her second show with the gallery.
The 22 is headed out this Saturday to check out Atlas Obscura’s tour of Newton Creek. We’ll have a full update afterwards, but in the meantime buy your tickets and join us! We will be exploring the petroleum and waste transfer districts of the Newtown Creek watershed in North Brooklyn. Heavily industrialized, the area we will be walking through is the heart of the Greenpoint Oil Spill and home to scores of waste transfer stations and other heavy industries. We will be heading for the thrice damned Kosciuszko Bridge, which is scheduled for a demolition and replacement project which will be starting in 2013. Photographers, in particular, will find this an interesting walk through a little known and quite obscure section of New York City.
“Battle on Bergen” is a site-specific performance incorporating elements of dance, street theater, puppetry, and live music, depicting certain events from the Battle of Brooklyn and drawing parallels between the American Revolutionary War and events today. Sometimes forgotten in the very neighborhoods where it took place, the Battle was fought on August 27th, 1776 weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. ”Battle on Bergen” is co-directed by Selene Colburn and features David Freeman, James Hannaham, Aaron Stanley, Willis Bigelow, Alan Balicki, Katie Merz, John Bauman, Tyler Sussman, and J.J. Hill-Wood.
A celebration of the under-appreciated creatures that roam the planet. From the Australian Bilby to the deep-sea Magnapinna Squid, to the Saddleback Caterpillar. The songs are brought to life by a gaggle of curious instruments and peculiar sounds including theremin, claviola, stylophone, and more.. With Michael Hearst, Ron Caswell, Allyssa Lamb Ben Holmes and Kristin Mueller.
Day Joy is the creation of Peter Michael Perceval and Michael Serrin of Orlando FL. Their music began acoustically on the porch and recordings began with just the duo layering instrumentation together and and creating the lush and layered Dream Folk/Pop recordings you can hear now.
AFP returns to The Paper Box in East Williamsburg for a new monthly multimedia experience showcasing some of the finest emerging talent NYC has to offer. Most recently, AFP hosted “Brooklyn Beat Music and Arts Festival” at The Paper Box, and will continue the multidisciplinary arts experience with their new monthly series “Mixed Greens.” Taking place on Saturday nights the third week of each month, “Mixed Greens” will bring together a fresh new mix of musicians, artists, and DJ’s, creating an eclectic experience.
Sound Off is an intimate performance series of sound art and experimental music that connects audiences with composers, musicians, artists, and one another. It takes place in a simple loft: no stage, no curtain, and little distance between performer and audience.
The Australian so-called “graffiti artist” LUSH is having his debut New York solo exhibition at Klughaus Gallery on Saturday, August 25, 2012. Following successful shows in Australia and London, LUSH is going to be bringing his “Art” to the Big Apple.
A multidisciplinary call-and-response experience, the FLASH POINT/ NYC ensemble of writers and composers interweave new hybrid texts, flash fiction, micro memoir and prose poems across the harmonic rhythms, inversions, melodies and lines of original live jazz. Synchronicities and spontaneities emerge, converge and diverge to cross genres, provoke tradition and explore the territories ahead.
Young and Reitzenstein combine pre-recorded sounds — ranging from oceans to railways — with two of Young’s stringed instruments, one wood and the other a prototype in aluminum. Their approach is a playful exploration of sound that integrates soundscape with unusual tunings.
Butoh Electra August 29 – September 8
Irondale Center The magnificent, intense and intelligent Butoh Electra is created and performed by the highly acclaimed ensemble, The Ume Group. A “beautiful and disturbing” piece (NYTheatre.com), Butoh Electra presents Sophocles’ Greek revenge tragedy as the story of a woman whose vibrant inner life is corrupted by the world of walking dead in which she lives.
Veronica Klaus delves into the amazingly broad songbook of the inimitable Miss Peggy Lee and brings her own sultry, smokey soulful style to some favorites and some lesser known gems from the Lee songbook, with the Tammy Hall Trio backing her, this is a great night of music for fans of jazz and the immortal Peggy Lee!
Neil Rolnick works for violin, piano and computer, with violinist Todd Reynolds and pianist Vicky Chow. Including Hammer & Hair, Digits, Fiddle Faddle and Robert Johnson Sampler.
Record release party for Harry Pussy’s Let’s Build A Pussy (1998) & One Plus One (1992-1993) with solo sets and a world premere duo performance by Bill Orcutt (one of the most influential noise artists of the 20th century) and “one of the most exciting drummers on the planet”, Chris Corsano.
Leland Sundries, a band from New York led by Nick Loss-Eaton, is dedicated to storytelling in a way that recalls Woody Guthrie and his Folkways brethren.Raquel and David are performing a rare duo set of past songs from their now defunct band, Norden Bombsight, and some of their new material from recently formed, Mesiko (Ray Rizzo, Chris Rodahaffer).”Taking her cues from the bold ladies of classic Americana country, Angela Perley’s vocal whippoorwill twang and down-home lyrics are so darling they will keep you up at night.
Neverheard Inc and Klerkx Art Agency will be presenting ICY AND SOT’s Made in Iran at Openhouse Gallery. The street art duo will be debuting at Openhouse 379 Broome in Nolita. Made in Iran will expose viewers to site-specific installation and new stencil work that has been seen on the streets of Paris, Turin, San Paolo, New York, and many other cities.
Critically acclaimed pianist TAKA KIGAWA will present a solo piano recital on Monday, August 27th, 2012, at 8:00 pm, at (Le) Poisson Rouge. Doors open at 7:00 pm. For this recital, Mr. Kigawa will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (complete.)
The Snow is a cinematic literary-pop quartet from Brooklyn, New York led by Pierre de Gaillande (Bad Reputation, Melomane, Morning Glories) and Hilary Downes. The Snow’s influences are as diverse as its sound – having been described in turns as post-apocalyptic French cabaret, gypsy pop, and carnival Americana.
“Adapted from a Don Delillo novel, Cronenberg’s latest dystopian odyssey boats all three the ingredients for filmic greatness — sex, violence, and Robert Pattinson — in generous portions.” -Chloe Wyma
Activist New York includes an astonishing array of documents, historic artifacts, and personal items that transport us to iconic moments when grassroots movements changed the city’s history and culture. But the stories of New York activism are also woven through the lives and memories of countless New Yorkers. Join us for a gatherine during which we invite you to bring along a photograph, or just a story, that tells about your or your family’s involvement in the democratic process of change that occurs when citizens unite for common goals.
All are invited to be present in Dream Time, listening into the moment, discovering who we are in this moment, within and without, listening, sounding, moving, seriously playing the moment, exploring the moment as a community of listeners/viewers. A sound/video dreamscape which has evolved from Norman’s prior Singing Mask ceremonies, his latest work “Mysterium Magnum,” home videos and recent electronic music by Ezra will accompany us in this journey. As a shared dream, Ezra, Caleb and Norman will explore and guide us into the present moment with sound/movement/Singing Masks as we are all interdependently interconnected within the intricate interwoven depths and delights of Dream Time.
Trombonist and composer has worked with Slavic Soul Party, Lee Konitz and the Kronos Quartet but here he presents elegant and energetic compositions for his lithe trio. “Odd and excellent, taut with paradox” – Ben Ratliff, the New York Times. With Jacob Sacks, piano and Dan Weiss, drums.
Thursday August 16th @ 285 KENT AVE
11:15 || Cassie Ramone w/ Julie K-Holes
10:30 |||| Deep Time ——— formerly known as Yellow Fever
-9:45 |||||| Turn To Crime —- Derek Stanton from Awesome Color
-9:00 |||||||| Weird Rivers
-8:15 |||||||||||| I’m Turning Into
From myths of haggling savages to accounts of societies run on mutual aid, “barter” occupies a grey area between gift giving and market transactions. In this workshop, participants will experience the theory and practice of barter. Participants will (1) learn about contemporary and historic barter communities, (2) connect with potential barter partners and (3) discuss the problems and possibilities of barter: building trust, negotiating value, communicating clearly, and getting projects done without money. Workshop Facilitator: Caroline Woolard is a co-founder of OurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop, two barter networks for cultural production. She is currently a Fellow at Eyebeam. cost: bring drinks/food to share, or volunteer to help clean up. You must RSVP to attend: email info@ourgoods.org with your name and the item/service you plan to bring.
A night of music & art brought to you by… Chandrikas. Music by Poison Dartz/Robin Vote/Catfox/DJ Bloody Powes/ART, the closing of “Growing the Garden,” a summer art exhibition of mixed media and mixed forms by David Shull.
A brief history of a word I use allot by Jesse Sheidlower lexicographer and writer of “The F-Word, a detailed history of the word f*ck,” Turntablist/percussionist/producer VAL INC. who pulls beautiful ghosts from a table of machines, very very real, very very human and very very funny New York stories by GREG Walloch and CHRIS WELLS, Fascinating smart songs and live electronic compositions of composer AMY X NEUBERG, beautiful and compelling 4 part vocal music of TREVOR WILSON and ENSEMBLE and a new composition inspired by Ali Farka Touré by SXIP SHIREY performed with Rob C. (special appearance by Leron Peled!)
Pitchblak Brass Band is a ten-piece brass collective comprised of composers, producers, artists, rappers, strivers, hustlers, and superstars. Hailed as NYC’s only hip hop brass band, PitchBlak has been rocking the city since 2010 with their original dance-worthy music, which combines robust horns, Afro-Caribbean beats, soaring jazz solos, and tongue-twisting raps. In addition to performing at notable venues such as 92YTribeca, Southpaw, and a packed headlining performance at Brooklyn Bowl, PitchBlak most recently played to enthusiastic crowds at the NXNE festival in Toronto. Because of each member’s diverse musical background and training, PitchBlak is active in teaching and mentoring young musicians in New York, and prides itself on giving back to the community. For more info, visit www.pitchblakbrassband.com.
Coriolanus” has been re-envisioned as a modern day “election fable” in the second production of the Drilling Company’s 2012 Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot series. This “Coriolanus” is set during an election year, when money can buy power and working class citizens feel threatened by a dwindling patrician class who are seeking to solidify their political power by manipulating political figures. The title character, played by Arash Mokhtar, is a potential leader who is vaunted for his success as a warrior but is completely out of touch with the every day citizen’s experience of hunger and joblessness.
In her new book The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing, Rachel Poliquin–best known for her blog “Ravishing Beasts”–explores the cultural history and poetic resonance of taxidermy from its rudimentary beginnings in cabinets of wonder to its revival in contemporary art. From hunting trophies to extinct species and kitten weddings to perpetual pets, The Breathless Zoo examines the meaning and matter of preserved animal-things and why anyone would want them to exist, and attempts to get to the heart of taxidermy by answering two fundamental questions: why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Animal or object? Animal and object. This is the irresolvable tension that defines all taxidermy. As The Breathless Zoo demonstrates, with taxidermy there are no easy answers.
There’s nothing remarkable about a movie theater today, but there used to be. When the great American Movie Palaces opened, they were some of the most lavish, stunning buildings anyone had ever seen. With the birth of the multiplex, theater companies found it harder and harder to keep these buildings open. Some were demolished, some were converted, and some remain to this day. “The Fall of the American Movie Palace” will take you through the history of these magnificent buildings, from their opening in the early 1900s to years after the final curtain.
REVERSE invites you to the exhibition of OPEN LAB, the culmination of a month of work at REVERSE SPACE, during which six emerging artists use the 1010 sq ft gallery space and convert it into their own work-stations. The artists: Jin Joo Chae, Scott Fitzgerald, Hudson Lines, Francesca Padron, Gabriel J. Shuldiner, Jeremy Zierau
Microcosm is Jonas Braasch’s new project. Expanding from his solo work, Microcosm is — in a nutshell — in a band with Jonas on the soprano saxophone, his alter ego on the Arturia Moog foot pedal, and Caira, an intelligent agent who improvises autonomously with the trio using auditory scene analysis techniques, machine listening, and logic-based reasoning. The agent is currently being developed through support from the National Science Foundation, together with team members Doug Van Nort, Pauline Oliveros, and Selmer Bringsjord. The Microcosm project was conceived to cross traditional boundaries between arts and science, and was conceptualized out of the desire to perform with an inspiring ensemble that can follow and provide musical cues very quickly. The concert will include adaptations from Jonas’ previous works: “Global Reflections”, “Sonic Territories”, and “Quartet for the End of Space”, which were released on Deep Listening and Pogus.
Adam Niklewicz plays with the relationship between identity and nationality with a slice of sausage in the middle. Removing our typical relationship with food (eat and run) Niklewicz forces the viewer to reimagine how we can view food with everything from beautifully rotating chicken bones to musical sausages! His sculptures are multi-faceted creations which resituate objects outside of their normal habitats. We caught up with the artist to find out more…
Jade French: How does your relationship with both Poland and America inform your work?
Adam Nikelwicz: On one hand, there’s the visual vocabulary of my Polish childhood, on the other – the American pop-cultural and commercial iconography. The two clash and blend together (there’s a bit of smoke) and all this occasionally produces some creative leaven.
JF: Do you think through creating art you gain a sense of identity? Or does art incorporate a universal feeling, which negates nationality?
AN: I’d dread to hear that my art is somehow ethnic, hermetic or obscure. True, I often base it on quirky, ethnic, folkish facts but I do hope I’m able to distill these facts into works with universal appeal.
AN: It’s hard for me to explain the Polish psyche notion (other than through art itself), I know though it reaches its peak when a Pole plays a polonaise on the instrument. Putting this piece together took a lot of effort and a lot of sausage. And there were these frequent (up to three times a day for a few weeks) visits to my local Polish deli, which confused the store clerk. My appetite for always the same mundane kind of sausage, the shear amounts of the product purchased, the fact that I’d often produce a tape measure from my pocket to check on the sausage’s length before buying – all this made the clerk uneasy. I fought against the instinct of explaining myself. I decided that the explanation (I’m not really weird, I’m only making a musical instrument out of sausage) would not boost my image with the man. In other words, I enjoyed the process and misperceptions it produced. The process has recurred several times since with other projects. What makes the piece utter the right kind of sound must remain a secret.
JF: One thing that strikes me is the manipulation of found objects into functioning equipment- like the Art Forum kaleidoscope. How important is it that your art has a function, as well as an aesthetic value?
AN: I want my work to both look good and to possess content. Yes, I need my objects to function, but their purpose must not adhere to an easy logic.
JF: Is the Art Forum piece a comment on art journalism? I noticed you cut the visuals from the review sections out- how much do art reviews affect an artist?
AN: Perhaps it’s a comment on the nature of art. I truly believe that art is ever-changing (like the kaleidoscope effect used here) and ever-fresh (not unlike nature itself).
JF: Do you think using microscopic visuals forces the viewer to look harder at your artwork, or engages them in a different way?
AN: A small object of art feels precious, like a piece of jewelry. I noticed that people gladly focus their attention on a small work. They feel encouraged to wrap their minds around it.
JF: Would you classify your work as playful?
AN: I’m very happy when someone calls my work playful. I’m equally happy when viewers find it humorous.
JF: Pieces such as ‘Ounce’ have a strong sense of nostalgia and poignancy- does this piece relate directly to personal experiences?
AN: I love that you misspelled the title of this piece! The actual title – ONUCE, stands for a garment of sorts – two pieces of fabric or paper (often a newspaper) designated to be wrapped around feet, usually in addition to socks. All this for an extra protection against cold. I suspect the term made the title partially because it looked like a misspelled English word (e.g. ONCE, OUNCE). I used to wear onuce as a child. Big time!
JF: Pieces such as ‘Calle Lunga’ and ‘Monument to Borscht’, although stationary, seem to incorporate a sense of movement- is that something you recognize yourself?
AN: These two pieces are not really built to last. They appear to face the imminent prospect of collapsing, breaking, sagging. I think, this is where the sense of movement comes from; their fragile nature implies change and change is related to movement.
JF: The kinetic sculpture ‘Chicken Soup’ has a sense of frailty to it – what do you think this piece is trying to say?
AN: I like fantasizing about that chicken I consumed. I assembled its bones in a rather aerial manner. I wonder- is this transformed bird on the verge of taking off?
JF: Why is there a link between food and heritage within your work?
AN: Food is a visible, tactile, sensuous (and surprisingly meaningful) way of experiencing a cultural heritage.
JF: I also read that you ate paint as an art student, which relates to the piece of bread with orange oil paint – can you tell us the story and why you recreated this moment later in life?
AN: The incident happened many years ago during a drinking party of a bunch of 17-year old art students – all ready, perhaps even certain, to conquer the artworld. In my own drunken stupor, I spread orange oil paint over a slice of bread and challenged everyone to take a bite. Nobody did! Meanwhile, I put myself on the spot and now I had to have a good chunk of the slice. The long forgotten incident returned to me quite suddenly, and made me realize that the then display of adolescent stupidity was in fact an act of commitment. A vow. I’m the only participant of that gathering from he past that keeps making art. I recreated that ‘action’ now to renew the old vows.
WHAT: PETE’S MINI ZINE FEST WHERE: Pete’s Candy Store WHEN: Saturday, July 21, 2pm-7pm
WHY: We are so pleased to announce the first print version EVER of The 22 Magazine will be available at Pete’s Mini Zine Fest, coming up this Saturday, July 21, 2-7pm at Pete’s Candy Store. We will have VERY limited copies but you will also be able sign up for pre-orders and if we’re lucky, you’ll be able to order directly at the table via ipad. Likewise, the first person to buy a copy of The 22, will receive a free mini-painting from editor Cat Gilbert! (Check out the catalog of work here.)Please join us, along with Volume One contributor’s John Jennison and Max Evry (who will be selling work for Pranas T. Naujokaitis), and if you just can’t wait until Saturday you can grab a print copy of The 22 HERE. If you are in any way confused, please don’t hesitate to contact us to help with your order at the22magazine (at) gmail (dot) com. If you are a retail store looking to get a bulk order, please contact for a special discount price!
WHY: Join us, Thursday July 26th for the Chelsea Art Walk and opening of Field Projects Show #6: How to Write a Novel. This exhibition centers on the labor and characterization of writing a novel. It draws a parallel between the source material of writing a novel and making art. Often the most potent source of inspiration for artists and novelists alike comes from the private, seemingly mundane aspects of our own lives. How to Write a Novel features drawings of text, photographs, receipts, books and the mesh-mash debris in an author/artist’s life. The artists in this exhibition include Polina Barskaya, Aaron Krach, Karl LaRocca, Thomas Marquet, Siobhan McBride, and Martin McMurray.
WHY: This year we’ve got more series, more poets, more headliners, more vendors, an additional arts and crafts village, healthy and delicious food options [though, yes iced coffee and yes ice cream], and a brand new children’s festival! Oh, and we plan on more sun too, though last year would be hard to beat! For a complete schedule of events click here, and be sure to click the banner below to check out the children’s festival!
WHY: Jeff DeGolier, Gabe Farrar, Elizabeth Ferry, Stacie Johnson, Anna Schachte, and Siebren Versteeg
WHAT: jerry blackman WHERE: toomer labzda PRESENTS WHEN: july 19 – 26, 2012 (by appointment only), opening reception / thursday, july 19: 6-8pm
WHY: toomer labzda PRESENTS is pleased to exhibit a collection of jerry blackman’s wall mounted works.each piece is penetrated and framed by the elements it is composed of: rope, metal chain, paint, faux wood and crystal. focusing on surface, he plays with the perception of materiality through a subtractive and additive process. his sculptures employ a malleable tension via a synthesis of patterns and objects which presents a core understanding of construction and craft.
WHY: Combining old-school jazz energy with raucous funk, hip-hop, and Mardi Gras Indian chants, the Stooges are rising stars among the new breed of New Orleans brass ensembles. Led by sousaphonist Walter “Whoadie” Ramsey, the Stooges were anointed the Crescent City’s best contemporary brass band at last year’s Big Easy Music Awards.
WHY: At the next installment of the wacky debate series, a team including Hot Tub‘s Kristen Schaal (30 Rock and Flight of the Concords) and Kurt Braunohler (host of IFC’s new comedy game show Bunk) face off against a team led by Christian Finnegan(VH1′s Best Week Ever) with Myq Kaplan(Last Comic Standing) and Bob Powers (Happy Cruelty Day) in this quirky take-off on the old school debate team. Hosted byMatthew Love (Comedy Editor Time Out New York).
WHY: Modeled on the Parisian acoustic jazz bands of the 1930s. While its instrumentation (violin, acoustic guitar, accordion and bass) has a distinctly continental sonic texture, the repertoire of this group is as diverse as Brooklyn itself. The technical mastery of its performers allows the group to slide gracefully between a burning Basie stomp to a slow Texas waltz without skipping a beat. Fronted by the vocalist Gretchen Vitamvas, the Hot Club of Flatbush is sure to please any musical palette. Stephane Wrembel is back next month.
WHY: The Silent Clowns Film Series is back and dedicated to silent era film star, Raymond Griffith, a star whom Walter Kerr described as “natty, lithe (and) un-mugging.” Today, view Griffith in Hands Up! (1926), with Mack Swain and Montagu Love. Dog Shy(1926) with Charley Chase is our added attraction.
WHY: tamara gayer creates a site specific kaleidoscopic installation, which focuses on the local and national monument – the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City’s Lower East Side. gayer manipulates, warps, inverts and expands the gallery’s appearance as she reinterprets the exterior and interior of the one hundred and twenty-five year old landmark.
WHY: This Summer, as part of its inaugural season of sonic-visual events, CoWorker Projects presents Kinematic Thursdays (June – July 2012) – a multi-disciplinary performance series bringing audiences in New York City’s meatpacking district some of the most dynamic and exciting sonic artists, electronic musicians and experimental visual artists and filmmakers from native New York to abroad. This innovative programme reflects CoWorker Project’s expanded vision as being an experimental space in the heart of the West Village.
WHAT: Hand Stories WHERE: Lincoln Center WHEN: july 18-25
WHY: It starts with hands: his father’s hands, his brothers’, his countrymen’s, and above all his own. Told through wordless, utterly playful scenes featuring hand puppets, poetic music, and striking visuals, Hand Stories is Chinese puppeteer Yeung Faï’s deeply personal family history during the vast changes that swept China during the 20th century.
WHAT: STOP THE FRACK ATTACK! WHERE: The Northwest Corner of 8th Ave and 34th St., New York City.
WHEN: Boarding starts 7:30 AM on Saturday July 28. Bus leaves promptly at 8:00 AM.
People across the country are converging on the U.S. Capitol to tell Congress, the President and the world:End the rush to drill! No to fracking, yes to renewables!
WHY: FRESH 2012 is co-curated by the distinguished collector of photo-based art, Fred Bidwell(Bidwell Projects), and Klompching Gallery owner, Darren Ching. Together, they have selected the work of five exciting new photographers from an international open call for submissions.
WHY: Following high school graduation in 2006, the band Murals dug their act out of the basement and planted it onto stages and into minds across Louisville, KY. Founding members Evan Blum (bass), Rob Monsma (drums) and Jacob Weaver (vocals/guitar) dreamed up a musical fruit jam, blending art-rock and psychedelic proto-punk. The addition of Hunter Presnell on guitar in 2009 completed the bands line-up.
WHY: Optical is an annual juried competition for photography. The theme from 2011, Portrait Stories, serves as a platform for photographers to present their work. The exhibition is comprised of photographs created by the top five finalists of the competition and serves to be dramatic as well as insightful into each artist’s individual definition of the theme. Congratulations to: Jennifer Judkins, Justin Chase Lane, Jacqueline Langelier, Linnea Lenkus and Johnny Tang.
WHY: Join The Believer in celebrating the launch of deputy editor Karolina Waclawiak’s debut novel, How To Get Into the Twin Palms. She’ll be in conversation with Ross Simonini, interviews editor. Facebook RSVP appreciated, but not required.
WHY: Court Square and pilot press… present an artists’ book open call and publishing night, an event that welcomes those who want to share their feminist artist’s books with new audiences, and those who want to learn more about the variety of such works being made today. Guests are invited to come together for an evening of discussion and publishing. The first twenty artists to RSVP will be able to present their artists’ books to an audience of other artists, curators, writers, and pilot press… published authors.
WHY: In her videos and photographs, Allison Kaufman creates temporary relationships with strangers, revealing the vulnerability, loneliness, aspirations, and disappointments of both her subjects and herself. Investigating these emotions in public and private spheres, her work highlights the gender roles we assume while playing on the performance and gaze inherent in all photography/video. In Dancing with Divorced Men, the artist records herself dancing with middle-aged, divorced men in their homes, allowing them to function as surrogates for her father. In Trust Falls, she collaborates with divorced men to stage intimate activities that require a sense of trust or caretaking. In Friday Nights at Guitar Center she explores the predominantly male customers of the musical instrument store via their impromptu in-store performances.
WHAT: Sandra Gottlieb WHERE: Kathleen Cullen WHEN: June 16 – July 13, 2012
WHY: In Sandra Gottlieb’s Black and White series, she zeroes in on the micro-creativity of waves crashing on the same stretch of Atlantic seaboard shore, cast in high relief by the setting sun. Gottlieb’s pictures are conceptual in nature, capturing moments that are structured to make the observer feel small, accept that one moment is quickly overtaken by another, or that some momentary phenomena remain beyond our reach, in terms of human perception. This is why wise beachgoers come away from a day there weary but strangely calm, drained and yet somehow massaged to serene wistfulness by what to others seems like the irritating monotony of the ocean.
WHY: Africanismo* is a project dedicated to showcasing the lesser-known performing arts traditions of The African Diaspora by highlighting the lineage and influence of the African continent throughout The Americas. Coming direct from Colombia and transcending borders, Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto are the seminal gaita group that serve as an overflowing fountain of inspiration for artists throughout Latin America. Noted as being the root of cumbia, gaita music is an amalgamation of African and Amerindian traditions. Thanks in great part to Los Gaiteros, gaita music has become one of the most influential traditional musics in contemporary Colombian popular music today. Worldwide DJ extraordinaire Geko Jones (Que Bajo?! nyc) joins these living legends by spinning music inspired and influenced by Los Gaiteros in a dance party infusing live music featuring special guests.
WHY: Banners & Cranks presents The Singing Picture Show July 20 & 21 at The Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn featuring new works by a gaggle of cantastoria artists and musicians from across the country with yards and yards of art and folks there to sing its story.
WHY: Angels, Animals and Cyborgs: Visions of Human Enhancement An illustrated lecture by Salvador Olguin: Presented by Hollow Earth Society; originally presented by Morbid Anatomy Deplored by many as yet another fashionable post, and defended by its supporters because it encompasses our current fears, hopes and changing reality, posthumanism is an attempt to think seriously about the possible long-term effects of technology in our society, our bodies and our mind. According to some advocates of posthumanism, these effects will be so deep, that they might change the human species as we know it, allowing humans to transcend the boundaries of their mortal lives by technologically altering or enhancing our bodies.
WHY: Studio10 is pleased to announce an event in the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series in association with the exhibition “Text,” featuring readings by poets Alex Dimitrov, Dorothea Lasky and Timothy Donnelly. Admission is free. Wine, beer and light refreshments will be served.
WHY: Dent May, The Babies, Levek+GET DOWN…all night long to the exciting rare 1960s soul 45s of world famous DJ MR JONATHAN TOUBIN (at this point this is the only time of the month you can hear the DJ’s exquisite soul records in NYC)!
WHY: Smokey Hormel’s résumé reads like a history of American popular music over the decades. He has worked closely with Beck, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, and Neil Diamond. His projects have included the Brazilian-influenced Smokey and Miho, as well as an ongoing tribute to Western swing. His latest endeavor is an idiosyncratic take on early Congolese rumba. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, African musicians looked to Cuba for inspiration. They recognized African roots in the music but were also captivated by its cosmopolitan aspect, which mirrored the evolution of their own culture. Using the electric guitar—fast becoming the symbol of urban culture—they forged a new hybrid that became an early soundtrack of decolonization. Hormel has hybridized the music further and taken it to the Americas for the second time. Keeping its pre-rock roots intact, he relies on a core sound of “wild guitars bursting through small amps afloat on a sea of hand drums and shakers.
WHY: Even in a music scene saturated with ‘chamber-pop’ bands and odd instrumentation, Kotorino stands out with its use of all variety of winds, strings, and other musical gadgetry. The music itself is omnivorous in its source material, quite pretty, and downright haunting. Kotorino includes Jeff Morris on guitar, words and birds, Estelle Bajou and Molly White on vocals, violins and verve, brother Jerome Morris on the batterie required, Sara Zar on musical sawesome, Liz Prince on tuba and invasive procedures, Mike Brown on upstanding bass, Stefan Zeniuk on reeds and rites and Jesse Selengut – trumpestuousness.
WHY: A bedazzled creature builds a community by singing 24 concerts of the last 24 decades of popular music. Ultimately all 24 decades will be stitched together culminating in a 24-hour long extravaganza (in 2014) but for now join Taylor Mac, musical director Alexander Horwitz, and band as they use popular music from the 1820s to honor Louise Braille who, in 1825, invented the Braille system. A note: all audience members will be blindfolded for the duration of this ninety-minute concert. All the Rats & Rags is an electric new musical based on Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist and featuring music from Tim Fite’s 2008 album, Fair Ain’t Fair – a carnivalistic funhouse of soul, bluegrass and hip hop.Set in a future on the brink of a universe-altering revolutionary war, this sci-fi rock opera centers on an adorably clueless spy-bot named Twizt.
Were there a place for this kind of truth, it would rest like a hand at rest, only as heavy as
it tends/needs to be.
There are numbers and signs and bedposts and other treasures left for streetwear.
In your mouth I found a mound and in time it will uncover itself, reveal
the buried, your ancestry kept beneath, sublingual and integrating, sublingual and dissolving,
sublingual, making its way through your vessels, shining light in new space, building mounds of elbow
and knuckle, pancreas and gallbladder, your eye. It is not what it does,
not the purpose of a purpose anymore; rather, a guise—calm teeth compelled to mercy and
your eye, the one made of dried tubers and plantains, the one well versed in the forsaken,
the sacred. In your palm a repository for yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
There is a shaker being shaken at this very moment and could you hear, you might dance or fright,
you might swallow or listen. Shake then. The answers you seek exist not in the cumbersome
notes, the copious, not in all those hands, your eye, but in the flavor, the flavor of yes and/or
thank you. Yes, thank you.
If salmon were a gun and smoked, how would you maneuver the catch, gesture,
maneuver fork and knife through barrel and flesh—scaled is the freshness of our decrees for the
sanctity, for the answers. And life can exist in new measures, line after line after line after. Do
not forsake the smoked gun, the smoking salmon, the smoke.
What you’ve left of me today is more
than enough for two. Maybe, I said. Maybe. Keep in mind what you keep in isolation. There are
carts for this kind of mercy. Call it fear or something like it or not. Call it anything but sorrow
because sorrow does not exist. Not as it should. Instead
we are left to want for more and watch the bleeding, the smoking, crying out for another and
another and another, our tongues lost in a cannon, combustible and ugly, grimy like how you said
you’d be there. Watch as the pain rejects any exposure to this that does not exist.
Have we forgotten? Again and there is another line, more/mere mercy and other things
like webs or candor or a golden rhyme. Memories are stacked, steeped
in what we know of it and then.
Shanita Bigelow, originally from North Carolina, currently resides in Chicago where she works and writes. She has work published or forthcoming in the DAP Journal, NAP and African American Review.
This series of photographs diagrams the parts of fake plants–from fabric leaves to price tags–as though they were botanical specimens. These images reference the format of traditional herbaria: collections of pressed plants mounted on paper used by botanists and other scientists as reference material.