dreams
THE WEEKEND: May 6-8.
FRIDAY MAY 6th
Umirayushchii lebed (The Dying Swan), 1917 @ THE GUGGENHEIM.
Fridays, April 22 and May 6, 13 @ 1 and 2:30 pm
Directed by Evgeni Bauer
49 minutes, 35 mm, silent with musical score
A figure of fundamental importance in the history of silent cinema, Russian director Evgeni Bauer brings to life a chilling tale that takes a sardonic view of popular morbid obsessions in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Bauer’s film features a decadent artist obsessed with capturing the image of death on canvas, an infatuation that drives him to the brink of despair until he watches a captivating and heartbroken ballerina perform. He sees in her the masterpiece he seeks, but ultimately, the young dancer cannot live up to the artist’s ideal and suffers the disturbing consequences.
ALCHEMICALLY YOURS – A Group Art Show @ OBSERVATORY.
Opening: Saturday, May 7th, 2011 7-10pm
On View: May 8th – June 12th, 2011
Hours: Thursdays & Fridays 3-6pm; Saturdays & Sundays 12-6pm
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Observatory and Phantasmaphile’s Pam Grossman are proud to announce ALCHEMICALLY YOURS, a group show of alchemy-themed artwork, on view from May 7th through June 12th.
Alchemy is the art of transmutation. Of taking the rough and raw, and rendering it more precious. Rather than accepting the literal “lead into gold” definition, Carl Jung believed that alchemy is a process of individuation, a symbolic and active language which guides one’s personal journey toward the realization of selfhood. An alchemist is a shape-shifter, a mystic chemist. A patient and meticulous devotee who turns the base into something resplendent.
Like dreams, alchemy speaks in pictures. At first glimpse, alchemical manuscripts from the 16th and 17th centuries look like a panoply of hallucinations. They feature images of fornicating kings and queens. Suns and moons shining in stereo. Lions and serpents and eggs, oh my. Black and white and red all over. Secret codes and effulgent iconographies teeming with meaning, yet ultimately ineffable. These pictures beget picturing. They’re signs that beg to be resignified; to be reinterpreted and refined.
The participants in ALCHEMICALLY YOURS have done just that. Varying in medium and style, each piece in this exhibition pays homage to the alchemic tradition — all the while affirming that the artist fills the role of alchemist in the present-day. For who better can elevate the mundane, turn the sub- into the sublime? From the prima materia of color and canvas comes great and vivid work.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Jesse Bransford
Molly Crabapple
Ted Enik
Marina Korenfeld
Adela Leibowitz
Sara Antoinette Martin
Ann McCoy
Robert M. Place
Ron Regé, Jr.
J.L. Schnabel
Hunter Stabler
Panos Tsagaris
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Pam Grossman is the creator and editor of Phantasmaphile, the premiere online destination for art aficionados with a passion for the surreal and the fantastical. An internationally beloved art and culture blog, it features daily spotlights on artists and events, as well as interviews with such visual luminaries as Thomas Woodruff, Nils Karsten, and Richard A. Kirk. Phantasmaphile was written up two years in a row on the Manhattan User’s Guide Top 400 New York Sites list, and Grossman’s previous shows, “Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists” and “VISION QUEST” were featured by myriad taste-making outlets including Juxtapoz, Arthur, Upper Playground, Reality Sandwich, Urban Outfitters, Creative Time, and Neil Gaiman’s Twitter page. “ALCHEMICALLY YOURS” is her latest curatorial effort, and she is proud to have it hanging at Observatory, the art and events space she co-founded.
Idée Fixe : Drawings of an Obsessive Nature @WINKLEMAN GALLERY
WINKLEMAN GALLERY
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Featuring work by Man Bartlett, Astrid Bowlby, Jacob El Hanani, Dan Fischer, Shane Hope, Joan Linder, Aric Obrosey, Michael Waugh, Daniel Zeller
May 6 – June 11, 2011
Opens May 6 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present Idée Fixe: Drawings of an Obsessive Nature, a group exhibition of black and white drawings by Man Bartlett, Astrid Bowlby, Jacob El Hanani, Dan Fischer, Shane Hope, Joan Linder, Aric Obrosey, Michael Waugh, and Daniel Zeller. The drawings in Idée Fixe either build toward or seem to disintegrate away from complex systems and through what is obviously a time-consuming, perhaps even obsessive process. Running the gamut from highly photo realistic representation to abstractions that suggest imagined landscapes or fields, these works are created from intense, often repetitive gestures.
Jeff Whetstone “Seducing Birds, Snakes, Men”
at Julie Saul Gallery, Chelsea. Closed Sunday/Monday. Through May 21.
Jeff Whetstone’s second exhibition with the gallery explores the nexus of language and wilderness through narrative video, 16mm film, digital animation and photography. Hunters transcend gender, men draw with snakes, and a landscape is made from sound-waves. (READ MORE.)
The 16 songs that comprise the French master’s entire surviving output feature some of the most moving and haunting vocal music ever written. The concert features some of New York’s finest established and up-and-coming artists: pianists Michael Brofman, Michael Rose, and Miori Sugiyama; baritones Robert Osborne and Kyle Oliver; and in her Brooklyn Art Song Society debut, soprano Eleanor Taylor. Tickets are $20\$10 for students and seniors.
WHERE: Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 7th Ave. Park Slope. B or Q to 7th Ave, 2 or 3 to Grand Army Plaza
WHEN: Friday May 6, 7pm
CONTACT: 917.509.6258; www.brooklynartsongsociety.org
3rd Ward Member Group Show
May 6, 2011, 7-10pm
195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn NY
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FREE Admission
3rd Ward Members are some of the most creative and ground-breaking people we know. Now they’re taking their work out of the media lab, shop, and photo studios, and showing the world in our biggest 3rd Ward Member Group Show ever. (READ MORE.)LOST WAX CASTING @3rd WARD
Lost Wax Casting is the process in which an object, preferably wax, is turned into a metal form. The process is useful for jewelry or small scale metal fabrication. Your object can be made out of other materials such as resin, plastic, or a variety of found objects. The exact surface that is on your initial model is going to be the surface of your metal piece.
(READ MORE.)
SATURDAY MAY 7th
7th Annual Brooklyn Peace Fair
Saturday May 7, 12 noon to 5 pm:
Location: Brooklyn College Student Center
Campus Road & E. 27th Street (near Flatbush–Nostrand Junction) (See below for how to get there)
2 pm: Keynote speaker: Juan Gonzalez, Daily News Columnist & co-host “Democracy Now”
Theme: “Peace Budget?…War Budget! How War and the Military Economy Affect YOU!!”
Workshops! Tables with information and resources by community peace and justice organizations!
4:45 pm: Peace Parade to local military recruiting station, led by Rude Mechanical Orchestra
Free admission.
Sponsor: Brooklyn For Peace
Co-Sponsors: Brooklyn College Student Center and Iraq Vets Against the War
Check out the schedule
See the Program (PDF)
How to get there:
Convenient Transportation from all over Brooklyn
Subway: 2 to Flatbush Ave/ Brooklyn College (NOTE: 5 does not run to Brooklyn College on the weekend)
Bus: B6, B103, B41, Q35, B44, B11, BM2
From 2/5 train, Flatbush Avenue Station (at Nostrand Ave)
Locate Hillel Place, direction Brooklyn College; turn right at Campus Road
Campus Road curves around to the left
Student Center is on the right, at Campus Rd & 27th Street
STOREFRONT EVENTS @ FESTIVAL OF IDEAS FOR THE NEW CITY
VIEW FULL FOIFTNC listings.
PAINTING URBANISM: LEARNING FROM RIO
SATURDAY MAY 7, 2011
Haas & Hahn Opening Reception: Friday, May 13th, 7pm
Storefront is pleased to present the work of Dutch artists Haas&Hahn [Dre Urhahn and Jeroen Koolhaas] in the exhibition “Painting Urbanism: Learning from Rio”.
The exhibition will showcase paintings, documentary footage, pictures, sketches and plans of past, present and future projects developed by Haas&Hahn. Featured past projects include the Favelapaintings in Praça Cantão in Santa Marta and “Rio Cruzeiro” on the stairs of Rua Santa Helena all in Rio de Janeiro. Present projects include proposals for two New York interventions and future projects span throughout the world. READ MORE.
SPACEBUSTER BY RAUMLABOR
11am-7pm at the intersection of Houston Street and the Sara D. Roosevelt Park
Spacebuster is a mobile inflatable structure – a portable, expandable pavilion – that is designed to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering. A new iteration of a Raumlabor project, the Küchenmonument (presented in Europe in 2006-8), the Spacebuster made its first appearance in the US in New York in 2009 and has returned for the Festival of Ideas for the New City.
Martha Colburn: Dolls vs. Dictators
at the Museum of the Moving Image, Queens. $10 general/$7.50 students and seniors. Closed Monday. Through May 15.
Urban Disorientation Game
The Urban Disorientation Game is an active, participatory journey through the City that involves map-making, exploration, homing instincts, and blindfolds. (READ MORE.)
Sublime Frequencies
Sublime Frequencies, the Seattle-based record label responsible for bringing Omar Souleyman to NYC, presents two documentaries with director Robert Millis in person. (READ MORE.)
MAY FAIR AT DING DONG
A Zine, Small Press, and Music Fair
Ding Dong Lounge
929 Columbus Ave. @ 106 St.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
1pm – 7pm
A zine, small press, and music fair. For one day, join us as we transform Ding Dong Lounge into an ephemeral bookshop, crafts fair, art gallery, speakeasy, underground music venue, cookie den, and inappropriately timed Christmas Party. This is the fifth fair of its kind over the course of three years, and it gets better each time. This year includes the rare opportunity to decorate a Christmas tree with both friends and total strangers in the middle of spring.(READ MORE.)
SUNDAY MAY 8th
Black Magic(1949) – Gregory Ratoff, stars Orson Welles
LOST ORSEN WELLS @SPECTACLE. Sun, May 8: 2:30pm
124 South 3rd Street
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Sun, May 8: 2:30pm
This movie has it all: swashbuckling action, intrigue, romance, mind control, and Orson Welles!
A curious, little-seen oddity based on an Alexander Dumas tale, Black Magic adapts the story of Cagliostro (Welles) an 18th century magician and gypsy charlatan, discovered by Doctor Anton Mesmer himself, whose hypnotic powers, derived by the sheer force of his presence, involve him in a plot to overthrow the French monarchy and an opportunity to revenge himself on the aristocrat who was responsible for the execution of his parents. (READ MORE.)
SPREAD IT
HELP BUILD The 2011 City of Dreams Pavilion: Burble Bupis.
Sign up to help build THIS for FIGMENT 2011!
Erected in the courtyard of Liggett Hall during Governors Island’s summer festivities, Burble Bupis a pavilion of two parts. The first part, a dome, is made from individual custom-designed components (Bups) with a unique morphology that allows them to be connected together in a variety of ways. Their articulated, bloated and textured limbs provide a sticky connection to join neighboring Bups. The other portion of the pavilion is a landscape zone that gently rises to provide privacy and structural support for the dome.
Burble Bup is sustainable in many ways: some materials are to be recycled; others will be reused. Bittertang anticipates that the non-toxic inflatables will be reused as floating toys at various NYC pools after the summer season ends. The fabric used for the soil tubes will be composted. The Pampas Grass and soil filling the tubes will be distributed to other landscape projects on the island. All of the materials were chosen for their ability to enhance our surroundings after their deployment in the pavilion.
ABOUT THE DESIGNERS
Antonio Torres and Michael Loverich started Bittertang at first glance in the halls of Perloff, UCLA, in 2005. Since then, they have been working together to create anamorphic and neotenous projects ranging from living aquaculture orbs, stuffed animals, piñatas, and sukkahs. In 2010, Ubaldo Arenas began to collaborate with Bittertang to further create humorous and pleasurable spaces. Currently, Bittertang operates out of New York City and Guadalajara.
In 2010, Bittertang received the League Prize for Young Architects and Designers by the Architectural League and was also selected as 1 of 12 finalists to build a sukkah for Sukkah City in Union Square. A duplicate sukkah was also built in Tel Aviv. Their work has also been published in various magazines and books.
The Burble Bup Design Team includes: Antonio Torres, Michael Loverich, Ubaldo Arenas, Claire Vitto, Adriana Del Muro, Fabien Rondeau, Cesar Ruiz, and Diego Ascencio.
Engineers: Martin Stroble and Thang Le, Severud Associates.
Project Mentor: Rob Rogers, FAIA.
ABOUT THE COMPETITION
For a second year, FIGMENT joined forces with The Emerging New York Architects Committee of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (ENYA) and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) to co-host a competition to design and install an architectural pavilion for the 2011 summer season on Governors Island. The City of Dreams Pavilion is to be a temporary gathering place for people to meet, learn about the arts programs on the island, enjoy a planned or impromptu performance or lecture, and experience the interaction of art and the historic context of Governors Island.
Instead of a typical design competition, the City of Dreams Pavilion asked entrants to consider how they would design this temporary installation in the most efficient and sustainable way possible. In the end, the goal was to create a pavilion that has net zero impact and that serves as a prototype for a new, truly sustainable, way of thinking about design and construction.
Our jurors for the 2011 City of Dreams Pavilion competition were: Yolande Daniels, Principal, Studio SUMO; Vanessa Kassabian, AIA, LEED AP, Design Director, Snohetta; Jing Liu, Principal, SO-IL; Milton Puryear, Co-Founder of Brooklyn Greenway Initiative; Ada Tolla, Int’l Assoc. AIA; Richard Tomasetti, PE, Hon. AIA, Chairman & Co-founder Thornton Tomasetti; Kristin Marting, Artistic Director, HERE; and Rob Rogers, FAIA, Principal of Rogers Marvel and a juror in the 2010 competition, who will serve as a design mentor to the winning design team.
The 22 Magazine 
