SVA Women Alumni Invite Artists Who Have Shaped Their Work

August 26 – September 21, 2011
Reception: Thursday, September 8, 6 – 8pm
Visual Arts Gallery

Panel Discussion Moderated by Lindsay Pollock
Tuesday, September 13, 7pm
SVA Theatre

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “The Influentials,” an exhibition featuring distinguished female alumni of the College and the diverse group of artists who have influenced their practice. “The Influentials” is both an investigation into the creative lineage between contemporary artists and a dialogue between mentors and mentees that crosses generations, gender and media. The exhibition is co-curated by independent curatorAmy Smith-Stewart and SVA Director of Development and Alumni Affairs Carrie Lincourt.

“The Influentials” brings together some of New York’s most recognized female artists, from celebrated painters like Katherine Bernhardt andInka Essenhigh to sought-after video and installation artists like Aïda Ruilova and Phoebe Washburn. The exhibition’s title refers not only to this group but also to a second group of individuals who have been a guiding force or touchstone in their work. Each of the 19 participating SVA alumni was asked to invite an artist or other person of influence to be part of the exhibition, and the invitees range from Washburn’s grandmother, whose “waste not, want not” outlook can be seen in her granddaughter’s frequent use of recycled materials, to cult French filmmaker Jean Rollin, whose 1975 erotic vampire tale Lips of Blood illustrates Ruilova’s obsession with horror movies. (READ MORE.)

Amir ElSaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble and Shahzad Ismaily Trio@ THE STONE.

8/26 Friday (MJ)
8 pm
Amir ElSaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble
Amir ElSaffar (trumpet, maqam vocals, santour) Ole Mathisen (tenor and soprano saxes) Zafer Tawil (oud) John Hebert (bass) Nasheet Waits (drums)
Amir ElSaffar (trumpet, maqam vocals, santour) Ole Mathisen (tenor and soprano saxophone) Zafer Tawil (oud) John Hebert (bass) Nasheet Waits (drums)

10 pm
Shahzad Ismaily Trio
Shahzad Ismaily (bass) Mat Maneri (viola) Ches Smith (drums)

David Yow @ FUSE GALLERY.
“GLASS GAS MASK”
Exhibition: August 24 through September 21, 2011
Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 24th, 7 to 10 pm

Working both digitally and by hand, artist and musician David Yow produces a body of work that has a keen compositional sensibility often combined with a dark sense of humor.  He utilizes design elements of line, texture, and shape in conjunction with found images and objects to enhance, alter and create graphically bold imagery with an edge.  In his digital works, Yow delineates images to exaggerate an emotion to absurdity; and in the paintings, he integrates acrylic, collage, charcoal, pencil, spit, hair, crayon, wood, etc. to craft a deviant somewhat biomorphic creation, that is, or was, living – whatever it is, is very difficult to discern.

The Public School NY Para-Academia Series #3: Nabokov, Coincidence and Otherwordliness

 A class facilitated by Stephen Aubrey
Date: Tuesday, August 23
Time: 8 PM
Admission: free, but please donate $5 if you can!
Presented by The Hollow Earth Society and The Public School New York

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977) is perhaps most famous for Lolita andPale Fire, novels of startling linguistic and literary playfulness. But as his wife, Vera, wrote in a foreword to a collection of his poetry in 1979, the true watermark of Nabokov’s work is the concept of “potustoronnost” or otherwordliness. Though much of Nabokov’s work may seem straightforward and realist, lurking underneath his fiction is an entire pantheon of ghosts, shades, demons and devils that comprise the true world of Nabokov’s writings.

Bizarro Fiction #1: Reading It, Understanding It, Writing It

A class facilitated by Bradley Sands
Date: Friday, August 26
Time: 8 PM
Admission: free, but please donate $5 if you can!
Presented by The Hollow Earth Society and The Public School New York

INTRODUCTION TO BIZARRO FICTION: READING IT, UNDERSTANDING IT, WRITING IT

Bizarro is a genre of fiction that is often considered the literary equivalent to the movies in the cult section of a video store. The simplest way to describe it is fiction that focuses primarily on weirdness. Despite the diversity of the books and that the individual titles can be categorized under almost every fiction genre in the publishing industry, there are a few components that bizarro books tend to share. These include black humor, absurdism, surrealism, occurrences of the unreal, and shock value.

OCEAN LINERS IN FACT, FICTION AND ON SCREEN: AN ILLUSTRATED LECTURE BY BILL MILLER
Friday August 26th 7pm

Revisit the glory days of the grand transatlantic ocean liners with maritime historian and lecturer, Bill Miller (“Mr. Ocean Liner”), as he recounts seaworthy anecdotes and tales of life aboard these floating palaces. Includes dozens of fabulous photographs and fascinating behind-the-scenes stories.

About Bill Miller, “Mr. Ocean Liner”

Bill Miller is considered an international authority on the subject of ocean liners & cruise ships. This includes those great ships of the past, those “floating palaces,” as well as the current generation of cruise ships, the “floating resorts”. Called “Mr. Ocean Liner,” he has written over 65 books on the subject: from early steamers, immigrant ships and liners at war to other titles on their fabulous interiors, in post card form and about the highly collectible artifacts from them. He has done specific histories of such celebrated passenger ships as the United States, Queen Mary, Rotterdam, France, Queen Elizabeth 2, Costa Victoria, Super Star Leo and Crystal Serenity.

The Secret Science Club presents: A Nocturnal Garden Party  w/ Plant Biologist Rob Martienssen
Wednesday, August 24, 8 PM @ the Bell House, Free

 Rob Martienssen studies the strange genetics and sex lives of plants. Until recently scientists and breeders used trial-and-error to create newer, more beautiful, and more useful hybrids. Now Dr. Martienssen and his colleagues at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory are unlocking the molecular mechanisms at the heart of plant evolution to help create awesome cultivars of the future and uncover secrets of our botanical past. Dr. Martienssen asks:

REDISCOVERING GERMAN FUTURIST CINEMA, 1920 – 1929 @ SOLOWAY.
“I see in the future a questioning of
the terms of the question; a reality
that admits it cannot hold; a desire
for Deathʼs opinion on life and the
despair at this impossibility…”
— F.W.Murnau, translated by Miriam Atkin

The BACK-STORY: While researching German silent cinema in the archives of the F.W.Murnau Foundation in Weisbaden, Germany, in December 2010, Kurt Ralske unearthed several dusty, unlabeled reels of celluloid. They proved to contain abstract images of a type
previously unseen. These lost experimental films challenge the history of cinema– and yet, given their content and origins, their existence now seems inevitable.

The HYPOTHESIS: The masterpieces of German silent cinema were enormously popular, internationally. However, the directors of these films, constrained by popular tastes, remained creatively unfulfilled. As trained artists and inhabitants of an avant-garde milieu, they developed a hitherto unseen experimental cinematic practice that shadows their more well-known work.

CAST OF CHARACTERS:
F.T. Marinetti: Founder of the Futurist movement in Milan, Italy, 1909
Fritz Lang: Director of Metropolis, M, Dr. Mabuse
F.W.Murnau: Director of Nosferatu, Faust, The Last Laugh
G.W.Pabst: Director of Pandoraʼs Box, Diary of a Lost Girl, The Blue Angel
Siegfried Kracauer: Film critic and author of the book From Caligari to Hitler
Eugen Schüfftan: Cinematographer, special effects artist, inventor of Schüfftan Process

Art & Law: Residency Program Symposium 2011
Wednesday August 24, 2011 6 – 9pm

The Art & Law Residency provides an intellectual and artistic setting for eight visual artists and four writers to engage in ongoing debates that examine the overlap and disconnect between artistic production and the law from historical, social, ethical, and intellectual standpoints. Using law as both a discourse and medium, new art and critical writing will come into being through the Residency. The four writers in this year’s program will present papers investigating the role intellectual property plays in the construction and dissemination of photography and video, the legal issues affecting new models of artistic funding, and art as an alternative to traditional forms of justice and legal remedies.

INSTITUTE_INSTITUT premiere
Thursday, August 25 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center
PPL’s new opera Institute_Institut is 99% sung text, plus instrumentation, video, supertitles, and action-based movement.
THE (work-in-progress) PREMIERE ON THE STAGE OF LPAC’s 750-SEAT THEATER!
Thursday, August 25th at 7pm
$5 Pay At The Door
LPAC, “Building E”
Take the G/M/E to Court Square and take a right on Van Dam or take the 7 to 33rd and Rawson and take a left on Van Dam. Map here:http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/visit/ Don’t be frightened! It’s right by PS1, 15 mins from the G at Lorimer, 10 minutes or less from Midtown Manhattan.

Puzzle Project in NY 2011
Aug 23 Tue – Aug 28 Sun 2011

The concept of the project: FUSION

This project will involve many different artists independently creating artwork on
puzzle piece shaped canvases. All pieces will finally be connected and
assembled creating one large puzzle. The artists will not know what each other
are creating, and no one will know what the final creation will be until it is assembled.
The theme of the project:
EXCEEDING THE BOUNDARY OF NATION, RELIGION AND RACE WITH ART: IT WILL BE CONNECTED!

White Roof Project: Paint the Block!

Studies have shown that when we coat one building in a row of connected buildings there is a positive impact on the neighbors’ buildings too. When an entire block is coated it creates an urban oasis with lower ambient air temperatures compared to a block with conventional black roofs. In essence, coating an entire block magnifies the effect of white roofs! This year we’re going to test it out for ourselves, and complete what is known around here as a “Model Block”!

Sign up here!

salon: xiaowei chen and cecil mcdonald, jr.
AUGUST 23, 2011 6:30PM

Xiaowei Chen attempts, through the use of delicate media and a lengthy work process, to explore the evolution of thought as well as changes in surroundings. For her Salon, Chen will present works in progress (drawings and video) that she has been making since the start of her residency at ISCP. She will perform a live, 30-minute video interaction and will also show a 49 foot drawing entitled Detached Clouds.

Xiaowei Chen was born in China, and currently resides in Boston. She works in various media, including video, oil on canvas, ink on paper, and ink on fabric, and her work has been shown in Beijing, Boston, and New York.

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