Holi is the Hindu festival of colors. It celebrates the coming of spring, fruitful harvests, unity, joy, and a tale from the Bhagavad Gita. In addition to the throwing of colored powder (Holi Gulal) it is traditional to light bonfires in celebration of the miraculous escape that young devotee of the god Vishnu. A demon tried to throw him into a fire, but he escaped without any injuries due to his unshakable devotion. In most areas, Holi lasts about two days. One of Holi’s biggest customs is the loosening strictness of social structures, which normally include age, sex, status, and caste. Holi closes the wide gaps between social classes and brings Hindus together. Together, the rich and poor, women and men, enjoy each other’s presence on this joyous day. Additionally, Holi lowers the strictness of social norms. No one expects the decorum of normal life; as a result, the atmosphere is filled with excitement and joy.
HAZMAT MODINE draws from the rich soil of American music of the 20’s and 30’s through to the 50’s and early 60’s, blending elements of early Blues, Hokum Jugband, Swing, Klezmer, New Orleans R & B, and Jamaican Rocksteady. The band is fronted by two harmonicas which use call and response, harmony, melody, and syncopated interweaving rhythms. The band includes tuba, guitar, and percussion, claviola and Hawaiian steel guitar. The band’s sound reflects musical influences ranging from Avant-garde Jazz to Rockabilly and Western Swing to Middle-Eastern, African, and Hawaiian musical styles.
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.
99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film Filmmakers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites in attendance for discussion including a video conversation with other film collaborators. Film critic Christopher Campbell will be moderating the discussion. Williams Cole will introduce the event.This feature length documentary film is spearheaded by over 50 independent filmmakers, photographers, and videographers across the country. We have come together to pledge our time, skills and gear to cover the events taking place in NYC and around the country. The end product will be a compelling, cinematic, resonant, and honest portrait of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Founded by NYC filmmakers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites, the project currently counts among its collaborative many award winning documentary producers, directors, musicians and editors (as well as PR people and distributors) including Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley (Battle for Brooklyn, Horns and Halos), Ava Duvernay (distributor of independent black films via AFFRM, dir/prod I Will Follow), Aaron Yanes as supervising editor (a frequent Barry Levinson editor, he’s also edited many award-winning features and documentaries, from Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Padre Nuestro to James Toback’s Cannes prize-winningTyson, Tyler Brodie (Another Earth, Terri), Bob Ray (Total Badass) and many more.
This updated version of the original deliriously madcap fantasy once again features the soaring song stylings of demented diva Joey Arias surrounded by an eye-popping theatrical extravaganza conjured by a team of puppeteers under the direction of Basil Twist. Channeling lurid celluloid dreams, macabre nightmares and bizarre premonitions, the adventure begins with an alien abduction and concludes with a stupendous Busby Berkeley-esque finale. Along the way, the throaty chanteuse belts out pop, rock and jazz standards in addition to some original tunes by Alex Gifford as Twist and company work their magic with vintage marionettes, anatomically correct puppets and fantastical scenic elements.
Ryan Feeney’s ‘Obscene Sunsets’ series of photographs explore the power and authority that image cultures have over our sense of reality while Ryan Macdonald’s ‘Pale in Compairison’ body of work explores how the phenomenology of nostalgia and narrative can disrupt our sense of stability in a normal world.
Opening Reception 6-9PM Friday June 3 Featuring demonstrations and a live performance by exhibiting artists.
Why does a minor chord sound sad? Is there a formula for the perfect hit? Whistling, dancing, finger-snapping, and toe-tapping—what makes us do it? Find out when music and science join forces in an interactive bazaar of beats, sounds, and rhythm in the exhibition BIORHYTHM, created by the Science Gallery and presented at Eyebeam as part of the World Science Festival. Learn what drives sound manipulation and discover how different types of music evoke different emotions. Trace the power of an impactful pop hook in a song, measuring the way our brains and bodies react, down to the responses in our fingertips.
Included works: Binaural Head; Sonic Bed; Klangkapsel; Something for the Girl Who Has Everything; Optofonica Capsule; Theremin Inspector V2; Music, Emotion, Empathy; Heart ‘N’ Beat; Reactable; Contacts; Hear, Hear; Traffic; Instrumen; Body Snatcher; Chains of Emotion. (READ MORE.)
June 4 – August 5th, 2011
Clifton Benevento is proud to present the New York solo debut of Los Angeles based visual and performance artist Wu Tsang, featuring video, collage and site-specific installation.
Central to the exhibition is DAMELO TODO (Give Me Everything), 2010, a hybrid narrative-documentary installation incorporating elements of Tsang’s lived experience organizing WILDNESS, a party/performance night for two years at the Los Angeles bar Silver Platter. The film depicts a fictional protagonist, Teódulo Mejía, a 15 year-old Salvadorian civil war refugee arriving to Los Angeles in 1985, who discovers community support among trans women at the bar. Based on a short story written by Raquel Gutierrez, and adapted to screen by Tsang, DAMELO TODO fictionalizes a larger narrative about the collaboration and tenuous coalition between the Silver Platter and the young artists of WILDNESS. (READ MORE.)
Featured artists: Delaney DelPonti, Bianca Dorsey, Jae Y Lee, Rebecca (Marks) Leopold, Steven Ketchum, Graham McNamara, Bridget Parris, Boris Rasin and Judy Richardson
Blood, Sweat, and Tears: the Work of Art and Tragedy endeavors to examine 21st century tragedy, disaster and renewal. The exhibition is an attempt to connect with contemporary artists who are also passionate about this theme. Nine artists were selected whose work explores a particular contemporary disaster, personal tragedy, or the rigor of cultivating new beginnings. As young adults who have come of age in the burgeoning 21st century, the curators of this exhibition are themselves well-versed in tragedy, disaster and renewal firsthand (as New York City dwellers) and from a distance. (READ MORE.)
Artists:
Peter Acheson, Hector Arce-Espasas, Maria Barbo, Genesis Belanger, Chris Bertholf, Erik den Breejen, Maria Calandra, Joy Curtis, Karen Dana, N. Dash, Carol Diamond,Ryan Franklin, Tamara Gonzales, Erica Greenwald, Xico Greenwald, EJ Hauser, Michael Hilsman, Rolf Jacobsen, Michael Kenney, Osamu Kobayashi, Jonah Koppel, Ben La Rocco, Elisa Lendvay, JJ Manford, Sarah Louden, Mike Olin, Craig Olson, Linnea Paskow, Alta Price, Nathlie Provosty, Christopher Rivera, Aaron Sinift, Elisa Soliven, Kol Solthon, Thomas Spoerndle, Deirdre Swords, Katherine Young
The art world experienced a caesura in the 1960s when the paradigm of the artist, working in solitary fashion, was taken apart by the advent of collaborative art. Through collaboration, the definition of what art was, and how it could be produced, shifted. No longer was the cult of the artist, producing a singular vision understood to be the only viable artistic model. Instead, this now re-evaluated model began to generate questions about authenticity, authorship,audience and methodology. Such collaborative projects as those executed by Gilbert and George, Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, Jeanne Claude and Christo, and Marina Abramovic and Ulay were instrumental in the development of such major evolutions in conceptual art as Body Art, Systems Art, Earth Art, and Performance Art.
The artists in Temporary Antumbra Zone have come together, collaborating through the lenses of painting, photography, video, and mixed media sculpture to promote collaboration as an invaluable mode of artistic production.
If you haven’t heard, this Weekend is Bushwick Open Studios. Bushwick waxes full of openings, events, and public art. http://www.artsinbushwick.org/
The Super Coda makes no exception:
Friday, 6/3. 7-10: Gabrielle Muller, Cafe Orwell’s new Art Director, will be presenting her first show, “Brooklyn Loves Philly”, featuring artists and musicians from both cities. Including:
Joanna Quigley, Kat Moran, Ryann Casey, Amelia Runyan, Paul DeMuro, Mary Price, Bobby Heinemann, Bobby Gonzales, Liz Thamm, Brendon Stuart, Gabrielle Muller, Austin Saylor Jackson, Hilary Price, Matt DeFillipo, Crystal Stokowski. Plus an outdoor installation by Oliver Warden, “Untitled Box”
The Art will be on display at the Cafe through July.
Saturday, 6/4. 9-midnight. The Super Coda presents Jazz that is all over the place and from all over the place. Featuring:
Kirk Knuffke – http://www.kirkknuffke.com/
Otra Gente (Luis Ianes/Carlo Costa/Ivan Barenboim)
Steven Ruel – http://www.purevolume.com/steveruel
The Booklyn Art Gallery is pleased to present MASTER OF REALITY, a group exhibition featuring works by Milano Chow, Cynthia Daignault, Gary Kachadourian, and STO.
MASTER OF REALITY includes drawings, paintings, sculpture and prints that alter our perceptions of commonplace scenery, find fodder in the mundane, and draw our attention to the handling rather than the objects themselves. The featured artists create an alternate dimension of familiar objects, carefully mimicking reality so that it is recognizable, yet altering it enough to uniquely capture their own way of seeing. (READ MORE.)
We’re creating an open and inclusive event that benefits the neighborhood by sharing artistic projects and encouraging community interaction and dialogue. BOS brings the neighborhood’s thousands of artists and performers out into the streets and in view of each other, other community residents, and the general public. (READ MORE AND SEE FULL SCHEDULE.)
The influence of comics on our culture continues to grow. From the pop fantasias of Hollywood blockbusters to the rawness and refinement of intimate memoirs—and everything in between—it’s impossible to deny the wide appeal of comics’ words and images. The theater, of course, is no less immune to its spell. This summer, The Brick will invite one of history’s newest art forms to meet one of its oldest—and, through collaborations between visual and dramatic artists, the form and content of comics will collide with the content and form of theater to create strange new hybrids across both media. (READ MORE.)
Although not officially open until Fall 2011, ROULETTE BROOKLYN will open its doors this June for a two day John Cage MUSICIRCUS as part of the Atlantic Avenue Art Walk!
A carnival of all things experimental, the Roulette Brooklyn MUSICIRCUS brings a cornucopia of musicians, dancers, video artists, and performance artists from all corners of New York City’s artistic community together for a celebration of chaos and and the harmonies of simultaneity. (READ MORE.)
Holi
Hazmat Modine
BIORHYTHM, MUSIC AND THE BODY @EYEBEAM
The 22 Magazine 