landscape
Charles Williams.
The Week: OCT 11-14th.
MARTIN WITTFOOTH: The Passions
October 13 – November 12, 2011
Artist’s Reception Thursday, October 13th 6-8PM
The Passions, Martin Wittfooth’s first solo show in New York, is a contemporary exploration of sainthood, martyrdom, and religiosity that still dominates the ideological landscape of the modern world, and displays the prerequisite acts most often performed to attain such states of veneration such as violence, self-sacrifice, and suffering. In Western philosophy, “The Passions” refer to strong biologically driven emotional states that seduce one away from reason. Yet the term’s origin is to be found in the Latin word, “passio”, which means, simply, “suffering”. Consequently, the term is connected to the most famous act of martyrdom: the crucifixion of Christ.
COLLECTIVE BRIGHTNESS READING
Thursday, October 13 · 6:30pm – 9:30pm
Join editor Kevin Simmonds & 10 contributors for the NY launch of this groundbreaking anthology!
Andrew Salgado-Anxious
Reception:Thursday October 13th, 6-9pm
Exhibition October 13th – November 18th, 2011
Doug Jeck: “Early Works”
Thursday, October 13th – Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 13, 2011 6 – 8pm
Klemens Gasser and Tanja Grunert are pleased to present “Early Works”, the first solo exhibition of Doug Jeck at Gasser Grunert gallery. Doug Jeck is a Seattle, Washington based artist whose sculptures are influenced by static physicality and historicity, with the human object at the center. His life-like sculptures are an amalgamation of clay, hair, concrete, fur and wood that explore Jeck’s perception of various early historical periods and figures.
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Torben Giehler/ALI SMITH/Road Trip/Jakob Kolding/DREAMWEAPON/Zap/PAF/Posters of Fortune/Society
Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the fifth solo exhibition of new paintings by Torben Giehler. Giehler is known for his geometric abstractions, influenced by futuristic universes, and finished with mathematical precision. In a departure from the vibrant color palette and electrified vortex of his previous paintings, these new works extend a zen-like calm, alchemically fusing the synapses of the human brain to the grids and networks of digitized technology. (READ MORE.)
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DAN GUALDONI @Kathryn Markel.
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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.)
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LAST CALL: Susan Graham, Cletus Johnson, Brian DeGraw & Daniel Subkoff/Will Chancellor .
AS THE WORLD BURNS & PAST FITS, FUTURE PULLS @ JAMES FUENTES.
Closing May 8th.
Brian DeGraw
As The World Burns
Final Week at James Fuentes LLC, Gallery hours; Wed. – Sun., 11-6pm.
Special New York Gallery Week extended day, Sunday, May 8th, 12-8pm.
View exhibition images: here
New York Gallery Week link: here
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James Fuentes LLC proudly presents, as part of The New Museum’s Festival of Ideas For The New City;
Daniel Subkoff & Will Chancellor
Past Fits and Future Pulls
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center at 107 Suffolk St between Rivington and Delancey.
If you have trouble locating this project please text; (917) 509-2250
Saturday from 10am to midnight
Sunday from 2:30pm until 7pm
Festival of Ideas: link
Subkoff & Chancellor are offering their artwork for free to everyone who joins them, and ultimately back to the earth itself. Having traded their cash for living native seeds, soil and local clay, they’ve constructed a 13 foot tall sculpture with this material that they invite the public to help disassemble. Visitors are welcome to grab a handful of the sculpture and recast it in a provided mold, walking away with a small sculpture of their own. If left in an appropriate place such as an abandoned lot, garden or any soft ground it should dissolve and yield a significant number of native wildflowers within a month. If taken home and treated as an art object, it will likely dry out, crack and expire worthless. The main small sculptural casting will be of a rendition of Tlaloc, the elemental Aztec god of water, rain and fertility whose name translates as “he who is made of earth”.
Susan Graham & Cletus Johnson @ Schroeder Romero & Shredder
Closing May14th
531 West 26th Street
New York NY 10001
Susan Graham
New Gardens
April 14, 2011–May 14, 2011
Susan Graham’s exhibition, New Gardens, features sculpture, photography and video that use strategies of pattern and decoration to poetically depict the eternal struggle between nature and technology. Central to the exhibition are Toile Landscape, a large scale installation of Graham’s delicate sugar sculptures, and the intimate porcelain Toile Floating Landscape sculptures. Mimicking the recurring patterns of complex pastoral scenes found on Toile de Jouy, these works depict clusters of invented flora interspersed with industrial structures such as transmission towers, satellite dishes, or even cell phone towers disguised as trees. Charming, delicate and foreboding, each small pastoral scene compresses nature and technology in a bittersweet attempt at reconciliation. Graham’s photographs and videos on view in New Gardens depict skies choked with flocks of airplanes, modern-day birds staking their claim on the atmosphere. These works showcase Graham’s deft touch and ability to evoke rich, multivalent narratives from a few simple, quiet gestures. New Gardens is Graham’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.
Cletus Johnson
Collage 1968–2010
April 14, 2011–May 14, 2011
Cletus Johnson: Collage 1968–2010 presents a selection of Johnson’s beguiling collages, including collaborative pieces made with famed Black Mountain poet Robert Creeley. Johnson’s works are composed of deceptively simple materials inviting private, almost meditative contemplation on subjects of longing, erotic love and primal lust. Their quietude evokes a Cagean musicality, while a minimal juxtaposition of images wrings endless narrative associations. Envelopes containing black and white photographs of a woman’s breast are intimate love letters being sent and received, revealing a desire to both contain and set free the object of affection. Amusement park ride tickets are coupled with cropped images of naked male youths, granting the viewer permission to experience desire. Portrayals of Antinous—Roman Emperor Hadrian’s lover—as Cyclops become homorobotic emblems of a carnal hunger for an idealized beauty. Johnson’s collages show him as a master of the simple, poetic intervention.
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LAST CALL: NO MAN’S LAND BY JOIANNE BITTLE @ CHURNER AND CHURNER.
24 March – 27 April 2011
Opening Reception
24 March, 6-8pm
see more images
video
press release
artist biography
poster
“No Man’s Land” presents the multiple facets of Bittle’s artistic practice. As a professional diorama maker for the American Museum of Natural History, Bittle works with a technical precision honed through years of adherence to the strict conventions of her craft. Such precision is found in her paintings and drawings as well; the works from the studio, however, are noticeably freer in execution, and they manipulate subjects in a way that blends scientific research and artistic invention.
A prominent theme in Bittle’s work is natural history: “the history of animals that exist in large numbers, with consideration of the unknowable nature of the animals’ instinctual motives within their environment.” She is fascinated by the intersection of abundance and fragility, as her jackrabbit painting attest; this animal of prey is known for its reproductive power and ability to survive in the scrappiest of conditions.
Shown together for the first time, the paintings in Bittle’s series depict solitary, gnarled jackrabbits in a desert landscape. The hares’ agitated expressions disconcert the viewer in a reciprocal gaze, denying any attempt at anthropomorphization. “No Man’s Land” allows the viewer to observe a certain loosening of Bittle’s style over the four years that she produced the series. Since 2008, the works have become larger, often consisting of multiple panels, and freer in terms of framing and technique. They have also become more metaphorical, alluding to fifteenth-century Italian painting and Egyptian statuary.
Nestled in a cargo trailer, Bittle’s diorama Preserving Mass Extinction is an imagined landscape of Marfa, Texas as it may have looked 250 million years ago, featuring fluorescent sponges, red tube coral, sea urchins and trilobites. During the Permian period, shallow seas covered much of what is dry land in present-day Southwest Texas; it was the mass extinction that ended this period that created the rich oil reserves of the region, known as the Permian Basin. A quotation of the American Museum of Natural History’s 1960s diorama of the Permian Sea, as well as a memorial to her own time in the West Texas desert, the installation connects ancient geological time to the present environment. As Bittle notes, “It is a collage of past and present,” one that calls forth the primordial sense one feels while traveling through this dusty no man’s land. It is the first in Bittle’s series Portable Landscapes.
Preserving Mass Extinction also playfully pokes fun at the town’s status as an art center: with its kitschy presentation of an fantastical scene in a cargo trailer, it resists not only the omnipresent minimalism of Donald Judd’s work, but also the division of art and entertainment that such high-brow seriousness can imply. It is the first in Bittle’s series Portable Landscapes.
Born 1975, Indiana, Joianne Bittle has exhibited in Marfa, TX at Eugene Binder Gallery and in the Bronx at Wave Hill. She has participated in several group shows, including “Entomologia” at the Observatory Room, Brooklyn; “Rubber Sheets” at C.R.E.A.M Projects, Brooklyn; “Bioluminescence” at Akus Gallery in Willimantic, CT; and “Viridis II” at the Hewitt Gallery of Art, Marymount College, New York. In 1998, she earned a BFA at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, and was awarded an assistantship at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy.
The 22 Magazine 
