THE WEEK/WEEKEND: October 25th-Oct 31st.

PLEASE NOTE: ALMOST ALL EVENTS IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN THIS WEEK ARE CANCELLED DUE TO HURRICANE SANDY. PLEASE CHECK WITH EACH VENUE ON CURRENT CONDITIONS. IF RELIEF AND TRANSPORTATION EFFORTS GO WELL, WE WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK  (NOV 7th) WITH NEW LISTINGS. 

JUDY FOX: OUT OF WATER
PPOW GALLERY
October 27 – December 15, 2012

P.P.O.W is pleased to announce Out of Water, our sixth solo exhibition of figurative sculpture by Judy Fox. Well known for her exquisitely rendered human figures, including children that are at once iconic, psychological and subversive, Fox continues to explore mythological references that are used to reflect upon contemporary sociological issues. In her latest installations, virtuoso use of form extends to the surreal, with visual puns used to provoke conflicted emotional reactions. The centerpiece of this new installation is a comely standing life-size figure of a Mermaid. Legs pressed together as if fused into a tailfin, hands paddling downward, she looks dreamily over her entourage. A set of Worms spread out before her like the writhing sea horses that pull the chariot of a Greek sea goddess. They are curvy and sensual — some profiles resemble parts of naked human bodies.

Lubomyr Melnyk
Sat, October 27, 2012 – 3:00pm
First Unitarian Congregational Society

Composer and pianist Lubomyr Melnyk is the pioneer of Continuous Music— a piano technique he has developed since the 70s that uses extremely rapid notes and note-series to create a tapestry of sound. Inspired by the minimal, phase and pattern musics of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley, yet frustrated by the ecstatic detachment from reality they can encourage, Lubomyr Melnyk created Continuous Music, based in the innovations of the minimalist composers but with its roots more deeply planted in harmony. His first recordKMH: Piano Music in the Continuous Mode (Music Gallery Editions, 1978) is the fruition of the idea he began developing in 1974 reimagines the sentiment expressed by Reich in his watershed Music for 18 Musicians, realized entirely for Solo Piano. Overtones blend or clash according to the harmonic changes. The technique of mastering his complex note patterns and speeds makes his music difficult for the normal pianist, and the kinetic athleticism of Melnyk’s performance is unparalleled.

Teodora AxenteMade of Matter
Ana Cristea Gallery
October 25 – November 24

Ana Cristea Gallery is pleased to present “Made of Matter,” the first solo exhibition in the United States by artist Teodora Axente. Teodora Axente’s work is centered on the duality of spirit and matter – the two spheres of existence between which humans oscillate in an attempt to uncover themselves. Portraying an unexpected array of materials, Axente addresses the essential human drive to reshape oneself. Through the flashy materiality of aluminum foil, satin pillows, nylon bags or curtains, she brings us into a world of mystery that appears to be spiritual, noble and attractive, on first glance. Aluminum foil serves as the central symbol of matter throughout many of her paintings. Its outward shine and its ability to reflect give off an illusory sense of nobility that blinds her subjects.

Andrea DeFelice
Harvestworks
Friday, Oct 26 at 6pm – Opening
Saturday/Sunday Oct 27/28 from 3pm to 7:30pm – Installation

A small coupling of works combining both obsolete and new technologies, then reassembled to represent obsolete fables, folklore, literature, philosophy, mythology, and music. As responses to such stories inspired by the observation of human behavior, symbolic animals, objects and mechanics are used to further illustrate their foibles and behavioral patterns, whether expected or unpredictable.

Vital Vox Festival | “Vox Electronics: Philip Hamilton / Sabrina Lastman / Sarah Bernstein
Roulette
Monday, October 29, 2012 @ 8:00 pm

VITAL VOX: A VOCAL FESTIVAL explores the myriad power of the human voice in its solo and ensemble forms across a multitude of genres. It celebrates composer-performers in the vocal arts who stretch and expand the voice in new and original ways, continuing a strong contemporary tradition developed in the United States. Over the course of two diverse evenings VITAL VOX explores “Vox Electronics.”  Performances draw from wide-ranging international influences and genres including jazz, experimental, contemporary, free improvisation, world music, interactive electro-acoustic and audio sampling.

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THE WEEK/WEEKEND: September 6-13.

VALERIE HEGARTY: Figure, Flowers, Fruit
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
September 9, 2012 – October 21, 2012

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.

Strange Tales of Liaozhai
Friday, September 7
HERE Arts Center

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.

Nancy Davidson: Dustup
Betty Cunningham Gallery
9/6/2012 To 10/6/2012

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.

Thomas Allen: Beautiful Evidence
Sep 9 – Oct 14, 2012
Foley Gallery

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/Matthew Bone
September 8th – October 19th
Last Rites Gallery

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.

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The Weekend:Dec 2-4.

FRIDAY:

TED BROOKLYN:
We’re living in what is commonly referred to as the “Information Age.” With the emergence of social networks, we build new communities by pressing the “Like” and “+1” buttons and becoming fans. As we become increasingly interconnected with the Brooklyn community in these new ways, we find ourselves grasping for a new common ethos. In other words, we are striving to refine and define “better.” On December 2 at Brooklyn Bowl, we will address these issues with talks from the best and brightest minds of Brooklyn and beyond.

OPERA ON TAP/Roulette Sisters.
Opera is fun. Most people don’t seem to realize how much fun it really is. In order to prove it, Opera on Tap has taken its act to barrooms where they found out that beer on tap enhances the operatic experience. The company is made up of young singers and instrumentalists who relish the direct contact with audiences not inhibited in their reactions by the looming menace of giant chandelier.The Roulette Sisters have been turning heads and stopping traffic since forming in the cold winter of 2003. Noticing that their warm velvet harmonies and spicy hot licks were melting the snow outside, the sisters realized that they had started something not only weather-altering but soul-stirring as well. The sexy sisters play a hip-shaking blend of American country blues, traditional songs, popular tunes and old timey music from the first half of the 20th century. With Mamie Minch: resonator guitar, Meg Reichardt: electric guitar, Megan Burleyson: washboard, Karen Waltuch: viola.

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“Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest reading with contributor ANSEL ELKINS TONIGHT @92Y.

MONDAY, MAY 9th, 8:15 pm.

Formerly called the Discovery/The Nation poetry contest, the Joan Leiman Jacobson Poetry Prizes are, for the fourth year, presented by Boston Review poetry editor Timothy Donnelly.

The four winners of the 2011 “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest are: Ansel Elkins, of Greensboro, NC; Angelo Nikolopoulos of New York, NY; Adam Roberts, of Iowa City, IA; and Solmaz Sharif, of Los Angeles, CA.

The three runners-up for 2011 are Xavier Cavazos of Ames, IA; Rebecca Lehmann of Tallahassee, FL; and Megan Williams of Boise, ID.

At their reading on May 9, the winners will be introduced by Timothy Donnelly, Cornelius Eady and D. A. Powell (subject to change).

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An Interview with Ophelia Chong.


22:
First the background questions, where did you grow up and how did you get involved with art?

OPHELIA CHONG:I grew up in the wilds of Canada, in the city of Toronto. I remember my first collage, in grade five; it was a collage made of magazine bits and it was blue and green. During my formative years I was an explorer, I would ride my bike from mid-town to the lake and back; I would disappear for a whole day, exploring the city on my three-speed bike. I quickly outgrew Toronto and packed up and left for Los Angeles. I went to the Art Center College of Design and graduated with a BFA in Painting. I am an adjunct professor there in the Photography Dept.

22: What about collage appeals to you?

OPHELIA CHONG
I love seeing the possibilities of color. Of using the pieces of paper as paint, my X-acto knife the brush.

22:
 What about the fusion of collage and design appeals to you? Are they really just versions of the same thing?

OPHELIA CHONG
It’s all the same thing, I see it all as color and form, no matter what medium it is.

22: You also seem to have a penchant for typography and presses where did that start?
 

OPHELIA CHONG: Shapes, I love the curves of typography. When I was younger I would sit in class sketching serif fonts. I loved the thin with the thick, the swoosh and staccato of forms in typography. When I first used a Vandercook Press six years ago, I was hooked. I love the ink pressing into the paper, the randomness of where the letters fell onto pieces of ephemera that I put through the press. How each piece was a singular piece of art. Never to be repeated twice. I use only vintage magazines to print on, therefore each piece is non-repeatable.

22: Can you explain your 35mm slide work (surreal cereal) process a little? What inspired working with collage this way? Any specific artists? 

OPHELIA CHONG:That is about how we see life. For example, we both see two people arguing, I see it through the lens of my life experience and you see it through your’s. We will both come up with different assumptions of why they are arguing, because we react differently due to the environment we grew up in. My layering of 35mm slides is a tactile version of this theory, I layer images over each other to create something new, something that resonates with the way I see life. I am inspired by Guido Reni, Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses by Eikoh Hosoe, film noir, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, Ethan Frome by Wharton, and so much more.

22:Who are some of your favorite designers or artists in general?

OPHELIA CHONG:
All art from the 16th – 18th century. Fritz Sauter ( a Swiss printmaker), 15th century Gothic churches, Orson Welles, Paul Rand, [Richard] Neutra
music for the clavichord, the flavor of the week and anything that makes me want to grab an X-acto knife.

22: 
How did you start working on the slips of paper series? What was your first collage for that? 

OPHELIA CHONG
I started in 1999, but if I had to trace it back, since I could use scissors. I picked up a small Moleskine sketch book  in 1999 and started sticking bits of paper 
in it to relieve the stress I was going through at my job as a Creative Director. I filled books and books with “slips of paper”, not really going towards an end goal, just to keep myself from the digital world. All my work is non-digital.

22: 
How do you balance your professional life with your artistic career, do the two ever clash? Or do they enhance each other? 

OPHELIA CHONG
I melded both into one. I have a rep in NYC for my illustration, and I now have a studio that I sit in all day working. I love it. Work = Love = Happiness

22:
What are you currently working on? Any upcoming projects? 

OPHELIA CHONG
:
I am writing more, I write commentary for KCET ( a local TV station in Los Angeles) and for howtosplitanatom.com . I have  work traveling from Barcelona to NYC, it will take 2 years to finish my travels. My 
letterpress work is at the Hunt Gallery at Webster University in St.Louis. My project now is to keep cutting paper and I know I will never tire of it; the only time I get into  trouble is when I cut up something someone was still reading. Never leave anything you want to read around me, it just might end up in a collage.

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OPHELIA‘S WEBSITE.