Jonas Mekas and Johan Kugelberg present “Wait For Me At The Bottom Of The Pool,” artwork, ephemera, and photography by Jack Smith. The exhibition at Boo-Hooray opens this Valentine’s Day. Jack Smith, 1932-1989, was a master of the exotic idiom, working in theatre, underground film, photography, graphic design, drawing, and slideshows. He was one of the path-finding pioneers of American post-war underground aesthetics. Boo-Hooray is exhibiting handbills, posters, photographs, letters, artwork and collages by Jack Smith, spanning his times and mores.
Miyako Yoshinaga is pleased to announce A Survey of Nonexistence at a Glance, the second solo show comprising new drawings and sculpture from Joseph Burwell. This exhibition is based on the idea of altering historical narratives by generating a visual system of architectures from disparate cultures that collide in time and space. A Survey of Nonexistence at a Glance examines the vestiges of a lost architectural period and its cultural byproducts.
A solo installation by Nathan Vincent Opening on Friday, February 15th
Opening on Friday, February 15th is a show that will blow you away! Crochet artist Nathan Vincent is wiring the gallery with fiber “explosives”, transforming Mighty Tanaka into a virtual tinder box. DON’T MAKE ME count to three! explores the roles that we play in society and our necessity to break through the barriers placed in front of us. You won’t want to miss this immersive experience providing a view into the mind of Nathan Vincent!
The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the globally renowned contemporary artist El Anatsui, this show will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures. Anatsui converts found materials into a new type of media that lies between sculpture and painting, combining aesthetic traditions from his birth country, Ghana; his home in Nsukka, Nigeria; and the global history of abstraction.
Inspired by the real-life sex scandal that rocked Britain in the early 60s, English composer Thomas Adès’ 1995 chamber opera returns to BAM 15 years after its New York premiere at the BAM Majestic Theater (now the BAM Harvey Theater). In this new production from New York City Opera, director Jay Scheib presents his genre-defying vision, integrating technology and daring physicality to this modern opera that plays off the public’s obsession with the tabloid controversy surrounding a series of Polaroid photos of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, dubbed the “Dirty Duchess.” Through the prism of Campbell’s life story, and featuring Phillip Hensher’s libretto, Powder Her Face explores the intersection of gender, politics, and power.
SINGLE FARE 3 RH GALLERY OPENING RECEPTION
February 13th, 2013
Michael Kagan, Jean-Pierre Roy and RH Gallery are pleased to invite you to Single Fare 3. This third annual open-call exhibition invites artists to make work on a tiny, innocuous piece of plastic: the New York City Metrocard! The exhibition opens at RH Gallery on February 13th and will be on view through February 22nd.
For centuries, the puppet Don Cristóbal — the Spanish version of Punch — has charmed audiences with his drunken, lusty billy-club wielding antics. But does he secretly struggle with his role as the Billy-Club Man and long for love and escape? Through experimental puppetry, clowning and live music, Don Cristóbal, Billy-Club Man explores the violent appetites of Cristóbal’s on-stage persona and follows him off-stage to reveal his poetic possibilities. Inspired by two comedic and surreal puppet plays by Federico García Lorca, the piece features shadow, hand, and large figurative puppetry by Erin Orr and evocative original music by Rima Fand.
LEGO® is out of the toy box and into the art gallery. New York-based contemporary artist and celebrated sculptor Nathan Sawaya is debuting a brand new collection of artwork entitled IN PIECES, a multimedia collaboration with award-winning Australian photographer Dean West.
Can we practice goodness and create a world to sustain it? In Brecht’s comic and complex play, this question is raised by one of his most entertaining characters — Shen Tei the good-hearted, penniless, cross-dressing prostitute, who is forced to disguise herself as a savvy businessman named Sui Ta so she can master the ruthlessness needed to be a “good person” in a brutal world.
To celebrate the release of her new album, Baroque (Bedroom Community / New Amsterdam), violist Nadia Sirota will perform music from the record, premiering Judd Greenstein’s “In Teaching Others We Teach Ourselves” for seven violas. Sirota’s unique interpretive voice has served as muse to some of the most widely respected composers of her generation, and Baroque features works written for Sirota by Daníel Bjarnason, Paul Corley, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, and Shara Worden. This album is the follow-up to Sirota’s debut, First Things First, which was a New York Times 2009 record of the year.
George Saunders, whose latest collection Tenth of December was heralded as “the best book you’ll read this year” by The New York Times, joins legendary talk show host Dick Cavett for a candid conversation about the author’s career.
What are you doing for Valentine’s Day? If you will be in New York please come byPrinted Matter on February 14 from 6-8pm and check out the Let’s talk about love, babyproject. It is a growing collection of artist’s books that was initiated by Chido Johnson in Detroit in 2009 and has been growing steadily since, having been exhibited in cities worldwide including Addis Ababa, Chicago, Harare and now New York. There are about 250 artists participating by fabricating their personal reinterpretation of a romance novel to add to the growing LOVE LIBRARY. Each artist is individually invited through “love and respect” and shares space together on bookshelves as part of an intimately linked interconnected community.
Churner and Churner presents Kenseth Armstead’s INFERNO, a series of graphic novel–inspired drawings that depict the true life story of the slave turned spy James Armistead Lafayette. Armstead’s fifty-one new drawings, tell the story of a double agent who helped end the American Revolution.
David Byrne (author, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, cofounder of Talking Heads) and Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson (drummer, DJ, culinary entrepreneur, member of The Roots) come together for a one-on-one conversation.
Planetary Collective is a group of filmmakers, visual media creatives and thinkers who work with cosmologists, ecologists and philosophers to explore some of the big questions facing our planet at this time.
OUTSIDER ART FAIR 2013 January 31 – February 3, 2013
Founded by Sanford Smith in 1993, the Outsider Art Fair soon became a critical and commercial success and the leading, annual event in the field of Outsider, Self-Taught and Folk Art. Recognized for its maverick spirit, the fair played a vital role in building a passionate collecting community as crowds flocked annually to New York’s Puck Building, the event’s original site during its first 15 years.
Everything is somewhere. Part installation, part image-driven theater, Loss Machine unearths a world of lost items, misplaced thoughts, and fractured journeys all housed within an intricately detailed set. Intimate in scale, this wistful one-man show combines puppets, objects, sound, and original music, in a visual exploration of loss and discovery. In a tower filled with life’s debris, a collection of characters move through an ever-changing apparatus with their shared emotional journey driving the mechanical process forward. Digging through layers of the everyday and the fantastical, the piece examines what is found when all has been lost.
You never know what to expect at this bi-monthly, wacky debate series that brings together two teams of comedians, writers and performers to face-off on a chosen topic, such as which pet is superior cats or dogs and is it better to be comfortable or fashionable? The next installment features Chris Gethard (host of the popularThe Chris Gethard Show), the new head writer for The Colbert Report Opus Moreschi,comedic musician Jessica Delfino, Kurt Metzger (Ugly Americans; Inside Amy Schumer)and Baratunde Thurston, former staff member at The Onionand author of The New York Times bestseller How to Be Black. Hosted by Matthew Love (Time Out New York).
Join us for a panel discussion of design and illustration as we will discuss, teach and explore in sharp clear focus, the vast range of tools, ideas, the creative process and how illustrator/designer approach thier client projects. We will discuss other tactics available to all illustrators, visual designers and other creative professionals. Additionally we will look at trends both positive and negative that influence and impact the graphic arts industry and our futures. We will also ask where the work and jobs might be found today and tomorrow.
AIRPLANE is pleased to present Strange Lens: Three Painters.
The exhibition features works by Hilary Doyle, Dan Herr and Mike Olin. These artists explore a territory between abstraction and figuration, and who present an idiosyncratic approach to art-making. All three are driven more by a mysterious inner logic than by aesthetic or narrative aims. These works do not ask for the viewer’s admiration, but rather exert their own strange perspective.
Thirty-one years ago, a six-piece band/collective called Stick Against Stone started writing songs in a dirt-floor basement of a row house near the University of Pittsburgh. Like a musical cargo cult fed by the global eclecticism of their local freeform community radio station – WYEP-FM – this “horns and percussion” outfit acquired a taste for afrobeat, punk rock, art funk, free jazz and dub reggae. Beyond the moniker of “no wave” – they wrote surprisingly deep melodic hooks amid swirling, ambitious and funky arrangements. Finding themselves with a devoted local following – but without a proper album to their name – it would be several years and cities later that they eventually broke up and their quirky, soulful songbook was lost to time.
The Klezmatics’ Frank London and Sway Machinery’s Jeremiah Lockwood have long been trespassing on sacred ground. For this special collaboration, Lockwood & London resurrect the sounds and spirit of the golden age of khazones – Ashkenazic religious singing – and explore the music of Zebulon Kwartin. Both artists are adept at exploring Jewish music and mysticism, bridging tradition and modernity. This new collaboration allows them to explore their mutual obsession with Cantorial music, and is part of the current zeitgeist resurgence of interest in classic Cantorial music.
For centuries, the puppet Don Cristóbal — the Spanish version of Punch – has charmed audiences with his drunken, lusty billy-club wielding antics. But does he secretly struggle with his role as the Billy-Club Man and long for love and escape? Through experimental puppetry, clowning and live music, Don Cristóbal, Billy-Club Man explores the violent appetites of Cristóbal’s on-stage persona and follows him off-stage to reveal his poetic possibilities. Inspired by two comedic and surreal puppet plays by Federico García Lorca, the piece features shadow, hand, and large figurative puppetry by Erin Orr and evocative original music by Rima Fand.
To celebrate the release of her new album, Baroque (Bedroom Community / New Amsterdam), violist Nadia Sirota will perform music from the record, premiering Judd Greenstein’s “In Teaching Others We Teach Ourselves” for seven violas. Sirota’s unique interpretive voice has served as muse to some of the most widely respected composers of her generation, and Baroque features works written for Sirota by Daníel Bjarnason, Paul Corley, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, and Shara Worden. This album is the follow-up to Sirota’s debut, First Things First, which was a New York Times 2009 record of the year.
Alfred Darlington isn’t a paint-by-numbers musician. From how he looks (early Victorian Dandyism), to how he makes music, or how he expresses himself and views the world, his is a very individual ‘bespoke’ outlook.
“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them.”
― T.S. Eliot
Track Number Three: song for hellos and goodbyes | 2min 35sec | DV | 2010
This short video poem is dedicated to the fleeting relationships which so often percolate through contemporary life. Song for Hellos and Goodbyes leads viewers through the birth and death of a romantic relationship using the cliché lines of purchased gift cards. Within the script, a second voice emerges to reveal a more authentic picture as the relationship blossoms, sours and disappears.
video & music: written, recorded, performed and edited by TBecker | 2010 | text compiled from a variety of gift cards at the local grocery
The 22 Volume 3/III/Three print version is here! And it’s beautiful! Check it out and buy a copy now at HP Magcloud. If you’d like to purchase a bulk order (20 copies or more) please contact us for a discount price at the22magazine {at} gmail {dot} com.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
We are thrilled/charmed/humbled and just plain happy to present the 3rd volume of The 22 Magazine. To continue to support such amazing creative efforts in Brooklyn and the world and act as a collector of each contributors story is a role we never imagined we would have the luck to play.
We cannot thank enough all our contributors, interns, volunteers, funders, and everyone else who makes this magazine happen. It is with great honor that we present the contributors for Volume 3/III/Three of The 22 Magazine.
Three Colorists, curated by Michael Walls, highlights the work of three artists who have several things in common: they began their professional life as painters; the oeuvre of each importantly involves the role of color; and the work of each is not only labor intensive, but also revealing of a hard-won mastery of the chosen craft.
It’s the last show before we move to our new location at 29 Jay Street! What better way to say goodbye to 38 Water Street than with our 14th annual Labapalooza Festival? This year’s line-up of works-in-progress ranges from the traditional to the irreverent, from the ground breaking to the nostalgic, and from delightful to downright punk-rock.
If theatrical is the question, masterpiece is the answer. Modesty in art is over-rated, as anyone with a Schnabel complex knows, so be prepared for the challenge of ascertaining the significance of what these artists have been cooking up over the past four months. Yes, each can draw, paint, and employ color to bold effect, but that’s of secondary importance (the least we can expect of an artist). What drives these artists is Imagination. Another word for imagination is risk, another word for risk is danger, another word for danger is aesthetics. And aesthetics, as we know, is for the birds. But these artists aint tweeting.
Three pillars of the noise and avant-jazz scene collide : Thurston Moore, singer/songwriter/guitarist for Sonic Youth, teams up with free-noise guitarist Bill Nace and avant-jazz saxophonist Joe McPhee for an evening of mind bending cacophony.
In celebration of the impending Vol. 3/III/Three, we’re launching our first chapbook edition this month! The Rule of Three is a new section where we post three photos or artwork and ask writers to write a short work responding to or narrating the images, or musicians or sound artists to respond with music to accompany the images and words (performance work is also welcome.) Chosen submissions will be posted on the 22 blog and considered for a future small book documenting each session. Only three participants, one writer, one musician and the original artist will be asked to participate in the printed book. We ask that written submissions are kept to around 1000 words and music submissions kept to under 15 minutes.
RULE OF THREE #1:
The first participant for the project is Eleanor Leonne Bennett. Eleanor is a 16 year old internationally award winning photographer and artist who has won first places with National Geographic,The World Photography Organisation, Nature’s Best Photography. Her photography has been published in the Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC News Website, and on the cover of books and magazines in the United states and Canada. Her art is globally exhibited , having shown work in London, Paris, Indonesia, Los Angeles,Florida, Washington, Scotland,Wales, Ireland,Canada,Spain,Germany, Japan, Australia, and The Environmental Photographer of the year Exhibition (2011) amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run “See The Bigger Picture” global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010.
TO SUBMIT: Email your submission to the22ruleofthree (at) gmail (dot) com
or to the22magazine (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject line “RULE OF THREE #1)
Fri. Apr. 6 Un Jour Comme Un Autre by Vinko Globokar ADDDDDDDDD by thingNY Sat. Apr. 7 ADDDDDDDDD by thingNY Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office on a Platform of Swift and Righteous Immigration Reform, Lots of Jobs, and a Healthy Environment: an opera by Paul Pinto and Jeffrey Young Sun. Apr. 8 Un Jour Comme Un Autre by Vinko Globokar Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office on a Platform of Swift and Righteous Immigration Reform, Lots of Jobs, and a Healthy Environment: an opera by Paul Pinto and Jeffrey Young
Exit Art is pleased to announce their final exhibition EVERY EXIT IS AN ENTRANCE: 30 YEARS OF EXIT ART. Founded in 1982 by Executive Director Jeanette Ingberman and Artistic Director Papo Colo, Exit Art has grown from a pioneering alternative art space into an innovative cultural center.
Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive Postmortem photography, photographing a deceased person, was a common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These photographs, from the beginning of the practice until now, are special mementos that hold deep meaning for mourners through visually “embalming” the dead. Although postmortem photographs make up the largest group of nineteenth-century American genre photographs, until recent years they were largely unseen and unknown. Dr. Burns recognized the importance of this phenomenon in his early collecting when he bought his first postmortem photographs in 1976. Since that time he has amassed the most comprehensive collection of postmortem photography in the world and has curated several exhibits and published three books on the subject: the Sleeping Beauty series. Tonight, Dr. Burns will speak about the practice of postmortem photography from the 19th century until today and share hundreds of images from his collection.
FIRST BOOK BROOKLYN HOLIDAY PARTY & FUNDRAISER first book–brooklyn is a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting new books to children in need. join us tonight for their first annual holiday party and fundraiser.
TALK SERIES: Poetry After the White House Jam: A Panel Discussion on the nature and Role of the Avant-Garde This talk will focus on poets Alison Knowles (founding member of Fluxus) and Kenneth Goldsmith (Conceptual Writing figurehead) and their inclusion in the 2011 White House Poetry Jam. Specifically, thinking about Knowles and Goldsmith as “avant-garde” figures: whether there can be an avant-garde that is current and representative, and how that impulse affects/is affected by an institutional context such as the White House. Panelists include: Rod Smith,Sandra Simonds, and Steven Zultanski.
Robert Wilson will talk to Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed, Lucinda Childs and others about his artistic collaboration with them over the years. The conversation will be instigated by Paul Holdengräber.
Robert Wilson is among the most distinguished theater directors of our time. Creator of such works as The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud, Wilson also collaborated with Philip Glass on the hugely successful opera Einstein on the Beach. Today, Wilson’s accomplishments are recognized not only in the spheres of theatre and opera, but also in the visual arts. Retrospectives of his work have been held throughout the world, and his installations have appeared in several Guggenheim museums, among other venues worldwide.
This event marks the US publication date of The Watermill Center – A Laboratory for Performance – Robert Wilson’s Legacy, a new book about the first 20 years of The Watermill Center. It will also feature the new book Robert Wilson From Within edited by Margery Arent Safir.
Dan Asher / John Baldessari / Michael G. Bauer / Michael Bilsborough / Nancy deHoll / Jen Denike / Tim Dowse / Ellie Ga / Laleh Khorramian / Jason Lazarus / Mamiko Otsubo / Samuel White
Opening Night Performances: Thank You Rosekind, Doom Trumpet, No Sky God, Mark Golamco
She was a lion sitting on her dad’s shoulders. They formed a totem of two heads, one large, one small as they walked down the street. Powerful with her lion-painted face, she stuck her tongue out at a man passing by. He tripped on the side of his foot and then fell to the ground.
The girl’s father didn’t realize that his daughter scared the man, causing him to fall. The man already had a fear of children. The girl’s father also didn’t realize that had he reached his hand out to help, the man wouldn’t now have two permanent rods conjoined in his hip bone, and wouldn’t have lapsed into a permanent hallucinatory state from which he’d never recover.
B.C. EDWARDS lives in Brooklyn. He is the recipient of the 2011 Hudson Prize put out by Black Lawrence Press which will be publishing his collection of short fiction, The Aversive Clause in 2012 and his collection of poetry From the Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes in 2013. His work can be found in Red Line Blues, The Sink Review, Food-i-Corp, Hobart and others. His short story “Illfit” is being adapted into a piece by the Royal Ballet of Flanders. BEN FAMA is the author of the chapbook Aquarius Rising (UDP 2009) and NEW WAVES (Minutes Books). He is the founding editor of Supermachine Poetry Journal. His work has been featured in GlitterPony, notnostrums, LIT, Poor Claudia, and on the Best American Poetry Blog, among others. He has contributed tips to gawker, words to urban dictionary, and has an ongoing correspondence with Lady Gaga. ELY SHIPLEY’s first book, Boy with Flowers, won the 2007 Barrow Street Press book prize judged by Carl Phillips, the 2009 Thom Gunn Award, and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. His writing appears in the Western Humanities Review, Prairie Schooner, Diagram, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah and currently teaches at Baruch College, CUNY. Hosted by Angelo Nikolopoulos $7 cover includes a house drink.
PROJECT FUKUSHIMA! BENEFIT CONCERTS
John Zorn, Ned Rothenberg (sax) Uri Caine, Shoko Nagai, Karl Berger (piano) Ikue Mori (electronics) Ha Yang Kim (cello) Nels Cline, David Watson (guitar) Yuka Honda (keyboards) Satoshi Takeishi (drums) Shayna Dunkelman (percussion) Chuck Bettis, Michael Carter (electronics) Kato Hideki (bass) and many special guests!
TWO SPECIAL SETS OF IMPROVISED MUSIC AS PART OF A WORLD-WIDE INITIATIVE FOR THE LAND AND PEOPLE OF FUKUSHIMA. ALL PROCEEDS WILL GO TO PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!—TWENTY DOLLARS
The New York International Fringe Festival Friday, Saturday and SundayFringeNYC? The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, with more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues. In addition to 1200 incredible performances, FringeNYC includes…..(READ MORE.)
In the installation, Living Room, artist and filmmaker Maya Zack uses large-scale computer-generated 3D images accompanied by sound to evoke a Jewish family’s apartment from 1930s Berlin. While listening to the stories and memories of Manfred Nomburg, visitors can experience the apartment visually. 3D glasses enhance the oversized images reimagining rooms in the apartment and give them immediacy and depth.
In 1818, when Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus was published for the first time, Mary Shelley could not have imagined the monster she was unleashing on the world. The creature in Shelley’s novel is remarkably sympathetic and an eloquent speaker, capable of measured, intelligent, and articulate argument. But based on Boris Karloff’s 1931 film performance and confirmed by countless other films, comics, and illustrations, the general perception today is that Frankenstein’s creature is a “monster” who grunts or speaks—if he talks at all—in disjointed monosyllables.
Why has popular culture largely denied the creature his reasonable voice? This symposium brings together four scholars and the curator and bibliographer of The New York Public Library’s Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection to reflect on graphic and film representations of the “monster” from the past two centuries. The first half of the day will feature presentations on key visual adaptations of the creature, while the latter half will engage questions about what these appearances mean for understanding him as a political and historical subject.
Consider escaping your common, everyday tasks and places without using your common, everyday devices. Through installation, painting, drawing, and video, Yana Dimitrova and Angela Washko portray the mundane patterns and structures of everyday experience and consider models of living that exist outside of our “to-buy-is-to-gratify” mentality. Stripping fast food architecture and smart phone technology of it’s branding and context, Washko and Dimitrova present what remains – hollow monuments to consumer culture.
In conjunction with the exhibition Why Participate?, Angela Washko has organized a lineup of videos and live performative lectures by artists whose projects take place within social spaces. The works being presented and discussed are mischievous, critical, occasionally hilarious, and examine the boundaries of legality. Artists Jason Eppink, Nate Hill, Ann Hirsch, Jaime Iglehart, Action Club, Paolo Pedercini, and Jeff Stark present and talk about their works discussing surveillance, costumed public service, reality television, knock-off culture, collaboration, video game evolution, protest, and performance in public spaces. Free + Bring your own beverages and snacks (images courtesy of Jeff Stark)
Nine poets from the First Annual New York Poetry Festival join forces to raise funds for the Festival and Bowery Arts + Science. Featured poets include Lisa Marie Basile, Jassie Harris, Meghann Plunkett, Rita Mercedes, Sarah Feeley, Ayala Sella, Nick Adamski and Bob Holman w/ Molissa Fenley.
Books will be available for purchase after the reading.
Admission: $8
The Bowery Poetry Club is located at 308 Bowery (between Houston and Bleecker)
Mikko Innanen – alto sax, Joe Fonda – bass, Lou Grassi – drums.
06/13/2011 8:00 pm $10.
Monday, June 13 – Performance EVOLVING MUSIC Series @ Clemente Coto Velez Cultural Center
Presenting Joelle Leandre solo & Joelle Leandre / Steve Dalachinsky Duo!
7:30 – Joelle Leandre Solo Contrabass
8:30 – Steve Dalachinsky & Joelle Leandre Duo
Admission is $16 per set or $21 for the evening
At Clemente Coto Velez Cultural Center
(Suffolk St and Rivington St) F or J to Delancey/Essex
TUESDAY AND WENESDAY:
LANDON KNOBLOCK/OSCAR NORIEGA/JEFF DAVIS @UNIVERSITY OF THE STREETS
Landon Knoblock – keyboard,
Oscar Noriega – alto saxophone,
Jeff Davis – drums.
06/14/2011 10:00 pm $10.
Please join us for a lecture and screening by artist Carlos Motta, followed by a discussion with curator Niels Van Tomme.
In his lecture “Amnesia and Repression: A Series of Attempts to Establish a Memory Project of Political Conflict from an Aesthetic Practice,” Motta will discuss his recent video and performance projects Six Acts: An Experiment in Narrative Justice (2010) and Resistance and Repression (2010). In these works, Motta attempts to offer a space for the articulation of memory of political conflicts from an aesthetic perspective. He does so by using the concept of “narrative justice,” a notion of justice detached from the judicial field and focused on narrative and communication as pillars of possible reconciliation. The lecture reflects on unresolved instances of political violence in Colombia and Honduras—instances that unveil a lack of a culture of memory and of social justice.
This event is organized within the framework of Provisions Learning Project’s “Aesthetic Justice” exhibition on view at the Lambent Foundation in New York until 22 June 2011. The exhibition features the works of Alyse Emdur, Rajkamal Kahlon, Carlos Motta, and Larissa Sansour, and can be viewed by appointment, Tuesday to Thursday, 11 am to 4 pm. Email exhibitions@lambentfoundation.org to schedule an appointment.
Featuring visual responses to a collaborative sound piece by artists John Aslanidis, Katy Dove, Phoebe Hui, Sophie Hunter, Miler Lagos, John O’Connell, Gonzalo Puch, and Zane Saunders.
Recess @ Kidd Yellin
133 Imlay Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
Tuesday, June 14th- Photographer and video artist, Rob Carter, will give an audio visual presentation of his work at the Red Hook outpost of Recess Activities, in collaboration with Kidd Yellin. He will discuss the evolution of his work and screen several animations, including some new unseen projects. (READ MORE.)
Award-winning puppet company Drama Of Works premieres their new historically-based full-length puppet theater piece in progress, Leakey’s Ladies. A collaboration with playwrights Crystal Skillman, Rachel Hoeffel and Erin Courtney,Leakey’s Ladies explores the work of female primatology pioneers; Birutė Galdikas, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.
Nels Cline is one of the most versatile, imaginative and original guitarists active today. Combining breathtaking technique with an informed musical intelligence, the self-taught Cline displays a mastery of guitar expression that encompasses delicate lyricism, sonic abstractions, and skull-crunching flights of fancy, inspiring Jazz Times to call him “The World’s Most Dangerous Guitarist.” Cline has performed on over 100 albums spanning numerous genres. In addition to his latest trio The Nels Cline Singers, formed with drummer Scott Amendola and bassist Devin Hoff, Cline is also the lead guitarist for the critically acclaimed rock band Wilco, which he joined in 2004.Click here to listen to “The Nomad’s Home”
Marc Ribot, who the New York Times describes as “a deceptively articulate artist who uses inarticulateness as an expressive device,” has released 19 albums under his own name over a 25-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez. His latest solo release, Silent Movies(Pi Recording 2010) has been described as a “down-in-mouth-near master piece” by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board.Rolling Stone points out that “Guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985′s Rain Dogs, and since then he’s become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp.” Additional recording credits include Elton John/Leon Russell’s latest The Union, Solomon Burke, John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards, Marianne Faithful, Joe Henry, Allen Toussaint, Medeski Martin & Wood, Caetono Veloso, Susana Baca, Allen Ginsburg, Madeline Peyroux, Nora Jones, Jolie Holland, Akiko Yano, The Black Keys, and many others. Marc works regularly with Grammy® award winning producer T Bone Burnett and NY composer John Zorn. He has also performed on numerous film scores such as “Walk The Line” (Mangold), “The Kids Are All Right,” and “The Departed” (Scorcese).“…he can sit down with just his guitar and simultaneously confound you with technique, beauty, and surprise.” – John Garratt and Will Layman, PopMatters Picks: The Best Music of 2010 for the album “Silent Movies”
LUMEN BENIFIT @Spattered Columns
JUNE 15th
6-9pm
491 Broadway, fifth floor, Manhattan Come down to Spattered Columns for one heck of a party. Check out a performance by Quinn Dukes McDivitt, and videos by Matthew Sleeth and Sander Houtkruijer. Music by DJ Mountains. Our sponsor BOMB Lager will be there handing out free merchandise ALL NIGHT LONG.
All proceeds from the party go to the participating LUMEN artists and curators. Tickets are pretty cheap, $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Where else does $10 get you food, drinks, art, and cool people??
Get your tix: http://statenislandarts.org/lumen.html
James Cohan Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition, Catch the Moon in the Water: Emerging Chinese Artists, running from June 16 through July 29, 2011. Over the past decade, while the West consumed new art from China, a young generation of Chinese artists imagined America as the center of contemporary art discourse. This exhibition showcases a group of young Chinese artists and their thoughts and responses to America as an exotic and remote source of inspiration. (READ MORE.)
Literary Mingle
NYFA offices
20 Jay Street, Suite 740
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Thursday, June 16, 2011
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Please join us on Thursday, June 16 for NYFA’s literary mingle, a gathering of NYFA Fellows in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry, NYFA Fiscally Sponsored Writers, as well as editors, agents, and the rest of New York’s literary community.
Wine and cheese will be served
$5 suggested donation to support NYFA Current, NYFA’s online arts magazine
Bethany Cosentino is a Los Angeles native with a brief stay in Brooklyn, and Best Coast’s influences reflects that: Beach Boys vibe with East Coast 60s girl group such as the Ronnettes and Shangri-Las. Best Coast is brought to life with the help of her long-time friend/guitarist/producer Bobb Bruno and guest drummer Ali Koehler (Vivian Girls). The pair have received heaps of critical praise from editorial publications including Pitchfork, who named their “When I’m With You” single “Best New Music”, New York Times, Spin, Paste, Nylon, Rolling Stone and The Guardian.http://bestycoasty.blogspot.com/
Those Darlins
A Planned Parenthood of New York City Action Fund Benefit
Middle Tennessee’s infamous country punk outfit known for their hooky, saucy songwriting and blistering live performances. They have mouths on them, yes they do. But their mouths are connected to their hearts and minds, and amped by loud guitars.
Noise Jam, an exhibit at The Gutter Brooklyn (200 No. 14th St), in
which musicians participating in the Northside Music Festival will
submit cell phone photos to explore the accessibility of experiences.
Opening reception: June 16, 2011, 10pm-12am.
It’s Bloomsday, the 16th of June, in the Brooklyn Lyceum Cafe. You are very welcome to join our resident Joycean scholar, Emmet Mc Gowan, in a casual celebration of this great day.
Bloomsday, named after the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses, is an annual commemoration of Joyce’s life, and is a beloved Dublin tradition. The day typically involves food, drink, and readings and reenactments of excerpts from Joyce’s 265,000 word epic novel.
Our humble nod to Bloomsday will be a spontaneous evening of recitation and quaffing. We dedicate this evening to The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who in 1920 objected to the book’s content and took action to keep the book out of the USA.
Subject of the Academy Award-winning Man On Wire, Philippe Petit comes down to earth for three special evenings to share stories from his life as a creator and performer. WIRELESS! is a 90-minute, one man tour de force that is touching, funny, clever, and extemporaneous. Philippe reveals and demonstrates how he taught himself magic, juggling and the high wire.
Henry Chung continues his exploration of obsolete technologies as metaphor for the changes and complexities of contemporary life in a series of portraits of computer enhanced images culled from flea markets and garage sales, rendered in computer punch tape. (READ MORE.)
With their dizzying folktronica—a mix of innovative instrumentation and songwriting with obscure found sound and speech samples—and perfectly calibrated, hallucinatory quick-cut video collages, THE BOOKS “remain more or less a genre of one… the flotsam and jetsam of American culture aren’t a cheap joke to the Books, but a source of endless discovery and joy.” (Pitchfork) JUNIP, the band that predates Swedish-Argentine singer José González’s solo stardom, conjures an expansive and mesmerizing take on his songs in which “González’s classical guitar and weightless tenor float over soul jazz, Afrobeat, Ethiopian funk and krautrock.” (Rolling Stone) With the “haunting, ethereal, and beautifully melodic” (Paper Magazine) bedroom pop of in-demand pianist and composer Thomas Bartlett’s DOVEMAN. Sponsored locally by Aguayo Realty Group.
Greetings Art fans! In celebration of Father’s Day, the Observatory Things-That-Move Dept. invites you all to take a peek at procreation! In nature, talents can be predisposed, and passed on from generation to generation. Families like the Gentileschis, the Peales, the Bachs, the Wyethes, and most recently, the Kominsky-Crumbs have all made a strong case for this heredity thing; the Bush presidencies, not so much, but hey, it’s a crap shoot! Anyway, our latest show is about a wee dynasty of painters named Corrigan, and through their family oddments, we will examine art, eccentricity, and the vagaries of genetic code.
Fowler Arts Collectiveis pleased to be participating in this summer’s Northside Open Studios event which will be taking place in the Williamsburg/ Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn from Friday, June 17 to Sunday, June 19. NOS coincides with the L Magazine’s Northside Festival of music, art, film, and ideas.
Please join us for a reception celebrating the launch of Northside Open Studios on Friday, June 17 from 7-11pm. We will also be open during the day Sat. + Sun.,June 18 + 19 from 12-6pm for Northside Open Studios.
Fowler Arts Collective, 67 West Street, #216, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Fowler has a nice lounge area to rest your tired feet during the weekend, and we will have maps and information about the participating NOS studios and corresponding events.
Fowler’s 18 artist studios will be open for visitors the entire weekend, and our exhibition, Paint It Now, continues to rock the Fowler gallery.
Fowler studio artists include: Elana Alder, Melissa Dyanne Bartlett, Catherine Behan, Cameron Bishop, C.M. Butzer, Scott Chasse, Jennifer Galatioto, Daniel St. George, Andrew Gordon, Paul Hoppe, Heidi Howard, Aya Kakeda, Deanna Lee, Michael Aaron Lee, Chris Mottalini, Kate Nielsen, Cecelia Post, Krista Quick, Tory Sica, Kim Sielbeck, Hannah Lamar Simmons, Ramon Urenia, James Vanderberg, Jing Wei, and Fletcher Williams.
Performance Space 122′s longest running series kicks it up a few notches for this demolition derby of theatre, dance, music, and video installation as part of the 30th Anniversary RetroFutureSpective Festival.
Join us for hard core performance during what “always ends up exploding into an all-out party.” – Flavorpill
FRIDAY 6/17:
Hosted by Murray Hill
Performances by Salley May, Alien Comic, Tigger!, Janet Clancy, John Kelly, Andrew Schneider, The Factress aka Luc Sexton, The Dazzle Dancers, Julie Atlas Muz, Urban Bushwomen, Joe E Jeffreys, Miss Joan Moosey, Gina Vetro, Jonathan Berger Music by Hank & Cupcakes, Rockman
Friday-Sunday, June 17-19 and 24-26, 2-10pm
Known for transforming narrative into something richer, stranger, and ineluctably feminine, OBIE Award-winning PearlDamour (Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour) join forces with New Orleans-based visual artist Shawn Hall for a hybrid project: part visual art installation, part theater performance that unfolds over an extended eight-hour interval. Beginning with an empty stage, PearlDamour, Hall, and a team of performer-workers transforms The Kitchen’s theater from floor to ceiling, constructing and then dismantling an elaborate evolving environment evocative of an old growth forest at one moment and a spectacular deep-sea landscape the next. (READ MORE.)
MakerBot Make-A-Thon
Saturday, May 14th, 2:00 – 6:00 pm
195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn NY
FREE
The MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is 1) a modern manufacturing breakthrough, and 2) also a lot of fun.
The 3rd Ward MakerBot Make-A-Thon is your chance to see these tiny factories in action, print awesome 3D objects and even a 3D portrait of yourself.
MakerBot Artist-in-Residence Kyle McDonald will be presenting his work turning the Xbox Kinect into a 3D Scanner. He will scan you in his 3D Photo Booth, then print you using the MakerBot.
The Makerbot prints anything up to 4”x5”x5” with ABS and PLA (biodegradable) plastic. All you do is hit print, and the machine does all the work. Print 100 butterflies, an entire chess set — anything! And see a 9 foot-wide geodesic dome, printed entirely on the MakerBot.
MakerBot Industries was named one of the top 20 startups in NYC, and has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, Make: Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, Financial Times, NPR, The Economist and others. For more information on MakerBot, click here and see photos of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic here.
Learn more about Kyle McDonald’s Xbox Kinect hack in this 3rd Ward blog post.
BYE BYE KITTY @JAPAN SOCIETY. Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art
Friday, March 18 — Sunday, June 12
Bye Bye Kitty!!! is a radical departure from recent Japanese exhibitions. Moving far beyond the stereotypes of kawaii and otaku culture, Japan Society’s show features sixteen emerging and mid-career artists whose paintings, objects, photographs, videos, and installations meld traditional styles with challenging visions of Japan’s troubled present and uncertain future.
MY W. B. YEATS
Timothy Donnelly, Philip Levine, and Rosanna Warren, with Eamon Grennan Saturday, May 14, 2:30pm MAP
An event curated by noted Irish poet Eamon Grennan, with American poets reading and responding to Yeats’ work and exploring the influence of this literary giant on their own poetry.
Co-sponsored by Culture Ireland, theDorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center atLincoln Center, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Admission is free.
Bruno Walter Auditorium
111 Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street
THE BLACK LIGHT LOUNGE@ SECRET PROJECT ROBOT. Saturday, May 14 8-11pm.
How awesome would it be to walk into a room filled salon style with black light posters and art!? This Spring Secret Project Robot creates the long awaited fluorescent opulence. Over 30 artists participate to transform the gallery into a black light cocktail lounge.
Join the Department of Cultural Affairs, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, and Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment for a day of FREE financial counseling sessions and workshops designed to help working artists, arts administrators, and independent workers reduce debt and manage credit.
SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2011
Information Fair, Workshops and Counseling Sessions 12 PM – 5 PM
Post Event Reception 5 PM – 7 PM
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation | 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216
OPENING REMARKS BY Kate D. Levin, Commissioner, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President Jimmy Van Bramer, New York City Council Member and Chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries & International Intergroup Relations Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., New York City Council Member and Chair of the Finance Committee Colvin Grannum, President, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Danny Simmons, Chair of New York State Council on the Arts and Artist
Love Your Library Day! Saturday, May 14, 10 AM – 3 PM Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza
As Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) faces a city budget cut that could reduce library hours, materials and free programs, we need your support!
Show your elected officials how much you love BPL by coming to this important, fun event on Central Library’s Plaza.
10 AM – 3 PM:
Book, T-shirt and tote bag sale
10 AM – 12 PM:
Performance by BPL’s own Lost in the Stacks
12 – 1 PM:
Advocacy rally
1 PM:
Performance by Vo-Duo, a group inspired by the vodou music traditions of Haiti
You can also use our computers to email your elected officials to say NO to budget cuts and remind them how much your library means to you.
Suggested donation for the event is $5. This donation, as well as proceeds from book, T-shirt and tote bag sales, will help purchase new library materials.
QMAD, Queens Media Arts Development, in partnership with Crossing Art Gallery, presents the First Annual Performance Art Festival of Queens featuring new works by local, national and international performance artists. This year’s program, ITINERANT, focuses on works that treat notions of displacement, delivery, and transformation. Participating artists use performance narratives and actions that evoke immediacy and intimacy to bridge the gap of communication and distance. (READ MORE.)
Stories about the journey to paradise, in religious and literary traditions, feature animals as both obstacles and allies.
In Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, Grendel is the “shadow-stalker” the hero must slay
to prove himself and attain an earthly paradise; on the medieval pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela, Spain,
there is still an ornate chicken coop housing a pure white rooster and hen in the cathedral in one town
to commemorate a pilgrim’s miraculous escape from disaster.
What beasts block our roads or assist us on the way?
Rev. Craig Townsend presents an evening of tales, images, and soundscape evoking and exploring
the human-animal interactions that illuminate both the journey and its goal.
Craig Townsend is an Episcopal priest serving as Vicar at St. James’ Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
He has a Ph.D. from Harvard that, while focused on American religious history, also entailed
the study of the world’s major religious traditions.
Please visit the Proteus Gowanus website for more news and information about upcoming events.
It’s my birthday next month and as a present to myself I’m doing a big “solo show” at Joe’s Pub with some of my very favorite NYC artists who I haven’t had a chance to perform with much or at all. (Aside from Adam but…he’s ADAM) Adam Matta, Ned Rothenberg, Terry Dame, Rachelle Garniez, Racheal Price, Sonny Singh and Xavier.
I will be presenting an expanded version of the Sxipenspiel. I also have a new device called a gravity marble tree…and a perfect Sam Cook styled R & B tune to be sung by Xaxier. I am going to do “Ring My Bell with Rachel Price and I’ll be performing an improv piece with the amazing Ned Rothenberg. PLUS I do a rendition of a composition by Shelley Segal.Very exited to announce that Mathias Kunzli will be the percussionist for the evening.
A brief interview with Sxip about the show and participants:
THE 22: Variations and experiments in breath seem to play a large role in both yours and Ned’s work. Besides the fact that you both play reed instruments do you feel you push the boundaries of the human body as a musical tool?
SXIP SHIREY: I don’t think I am pushing the boundaries of the human body honestly. Back in my 20s when I wanted to be a punk Michael Hedges I ended up with tendinitis for two years. The first time Ned saw me play he commented on how tense I held my body when I played. He plays with such a focused relaxed quality and puts the intensity just in music. He circular breaths beautifully, which is pushing the body in a sense, but really what is great about him is the calm control of tones that are ever evolving and unwieldy. My playing is definitely a product directly of what my body is doing. Modern dancers sense this and they love my performance, but I don’t think I’m pushing the body, I am pushing the instrument. Oh shit..I just reread the question. I see what you are asking now. I didn’t think of breath as pushing the boundaries of the human body as a musical tool, I just did it. Breath is a rhythm we all understand deeply, it is the most intimate rhythm we make that we can easily hear (unlike a heart beat), there is incredible power in making this intimate sound epic. I am ever creating a palette of compelling of sounds that that I can draw from to take me and the audience to effective places.
THE 22: What are you thoughts on the traditions in music versus the basic elemental pleasure of sound? Is either more important?
SXIP SHIREY: I am finding this question hard to answer. It’s not that either is important or not important. It’s just not the issue. I make sound and music because I have to. It’s what I have to do, sometimes it’s a song with guitar, sometimes it’s playing folks songs, sometimes it’s rolling marbles in glass bowls, sometimes it’s tweaking virtual synths on the computer. It’s all the same to me.
THE 22: What about each of these musician’s appeal to you in collaboration and why did you chose to share this birthday celebration with them?
SXIP SHIREY:They are musicians who have an immediately strong seductive presence the moment they play or sing. They are people I simply like hearing and will go out to hear when I am in NYC. I thought it would be great to actually play with them. Most of them are not my normal collaborators.
THE 22: Can you tell us a little about the SxipenspieI and gravity marble tree?
SXIP SHIREY: The Sxipenspiel is perhaps my favorite birthday gift of all time. I was on tour with Amanda Palmer and Jason Webely’s Evelyn Evelyn tour and my birthday fell on a day we were in Berlin. Amanda and Neil went to a flea market in Berlin and bought these great bicycle bells that do a trilling long tone. They mounted them on a candlestick with a bent copper pipe at the top and dubbed it “The Sxipenspiel”. It’s a totally awkward instrument that sounds somehow amazing. I’ve learned to play it gracefully and I play it a lot. There is something magical sounding about it.
Bells historically are used to give us directions. “it’s time to go to church” “come to the door I am here” ” the egg is done cooking”. There is certain power to use them as a compositional element because their sound stimulates those parts of the brain.
Known as “the Angry Ones” in Greek myth, the Furies were a trio of vengeful women born from the blood drops of the castrated appendage of Uranus (whose Titan son, Cronus, did him a dirty turn). They were psychological tormentors, the personification of vindictiveness and retribution. In art they were represented as winged creatures wearing nothing but snakes. In this reading by emerging writers Jamey Bradbury, Ansel Elkins, and Thera Webb—recent graduates of the MFA program in creative writing at University of North Carolina-Greensboro—they will forego niceties and read from an unforgiving selection of their latest work. If you’re bored with bucolic love poems, or have recently be wronged by a paramour, this Gathering of the Tribes is the place to savor the sweet taste of revenge.
has appeared in Black Warrior Review and is forthcoming in Zone 3. She is a literary assistant in Vermont, and is working on her first novel and a collection of short stories.
Thera Webb
is a radical feminist and resident of Brooklyn. She received her MFA in poetry from UNC Greensboro, and has had work in Fiction (JP) and Forklift, Ohio. Her chapbook, On The Shoulders of the Bear, was released this fall from Fractious Press.