THE WEEK/WEEKEND: August 2-9.

Summer Group Exhibition 2012@Joshua Liner
Joshua Liner

August 2 to August 25, 2012

Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to announce the 2012 Summer Group Exhibitionshowcasing 16 artists, including established gallery regulars and newcomers. This presentation will feature painting, sculpture, and drawing, with works by the following artists – Alfred Steiner, Clayton Brothers, Cleon Peterson, Damon Soule, Daniel Rich, David Ellis, Ian Francis, Jean-Pierre Roy, Kris Kuksi, Mars-1, Oliver Vernon, Pema Rinzin, Riusuke Fukahori, Tat Ito, Tiffany Bozic, and Tomokazu Matsuyama.

IRABAGON FEST: BARRY ALTSCHUL, JON IRABAGON TRIO
Cornelia St Cafe

Thursday,  Aug 02 – 8:30PM 

Jon Irabagon and Barry Altschul have performed continually in the last few years, including their tour-de-force Foxy (Hot Cup Records) and their upcoming duo release on Jon’s Irabbagast Records. As a preview of their upcoming trio tour, they invite master bassist Mark Helias to join them tonight at Cornelia St. Cafe, where they will be debuting new compositions as well as delving into the group improvisations that have made Barry and Mark such an important rhythm section combination over the last two decades.

IRABAGON FEST: BARRY ALTSCHUL GROUP
Cornelia St Cafe
Friday,  Aug 03 – 9:00PM & 10:30PM 

Since the early 1960’s, Barry Altschul has been associated with being at the forefront of Modern Jazz, playing with innovators such as Paul Bley, Steve Lacy, Chick Corea, Sam Rivers, Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Andrew Hill and Roswell Rudd, to name a few, as well as the likes of musicians such as Lee Konitz, Hampton Hawes, Sonny Criss, Art Pepper, Johnny Griffin, and many others.

IRABAGON FEST: JON IRABAGON JAZZ QUARTET
Cornelia St Cafe

Saturday,  Aug 04 – 9:00PM & 10:30PM 

Cyro Baptista @The Stone
The Stone
8/7 Tuesday and 8/8 Wednesday

Multicultural, polyphonic, highly creative entertainment that takes rhythms beyond their natural frontiers and creates a brand of music too innovative and varied to be labeled.

CAROUSEL @ SOLOWAY
SOLOWAY
Friday, August 3rd

Soloway is pleased to host the latest CAROUSEL, a long running series of Cartoon Slide Shows and other projected pictures, created and presented by a wide array of writers, cartoonists, and other characters. Hosted by R. Sikoryak.
This episode features:
Gabrielle Bell
Emily Flake
Myla Goldberg & Jason Little
Danny Hellman
Matthew Thurber

in the open
Kesting/Ray
Aug. 2 – 18, 2012

KESTING/RAY is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition in the open, a group show featuring five emerging artists who recently completed their Masters in Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The Skin We’re In
Yossi Milo Gallery
August 2, 2012–August 31, 2012

Yossi Milo Gallery is pleased to present The Skin We’re In, a group exhibition featuring the work of David Goldes,Lindsay Lawson, João Enxuto & Erica Love, Stephen Prina, Jon Rafman and Mark Tribe. The exhibition will be on view from August 2 through August 31, with an opening reception on August 2 from 6:00 – 8:00PM.

MIDNIGHT MONSTER MELTDOWN
Opening Party and Birthday Celebration: Saturday August 4th, 7pm-10pm
MF Gallery

Both artists are known for their colorful and horrific 2-D artwork in the form of drawings, prints and comic books. For this show, they have embarked on a brand new journey that will take us down the darkest roads of gore, the supernatural, and all things unknown. Witness Frankenstein, larger than life! Stand in awe of the giant blood dripping face, protruding from the wall! Behold the latest incarnation of The Creature From the Black Lagoon! Stumble in fear as you encounter Aliens dripping and oozing in blacklight pus, and look into the eyes of Death Itself! “Midnight Monster Meltdown” provides a visual explosion comparable to being high on LSD, trapped on a roller coaster inside an old time Spook House that never ends… All this and more only at MF Gallery!

Signs of the Apocalypse
myplasticheart
Friday August 3rd 2012 6 – 9pm

Underpinnings
House of Yes
Thursday, August 9th

Underpinnings presents a look into the wiry world of performance, dance, music, and fine art as interpreted by its involved artists. With motifs of peeling, multiple selves, sustainable creativity, streaming consciousness, power/submission, synth-art-pop, symbiotic siblingship, and sacrifice, each short individual act envelops viewers in an original experience. The performances will be followed by a party where drinks, video installation, and fine art will flow forth, served on a platter by the ritualistic art community that exists solely in Underpinnings.

Kimmo Pohjonen & Helsinki Nelson: Accordion Wrestling (U.S. premiere)
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Aug 3–4 at 8:30

SurroundSound grunts and groans punctuate accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen’s dance-theater work in which music, sport, and dance blend into a unique multimedia “squeeze play.” Reviving the dormant Finnish tradition of accordion-accompanied wrestling matches, Pohjonen performs while grapplers struggle on a custom-made mat embedded with microphones. His work, with choreography by Ari Numminen, comments on Cold War and gender politics while lending a modern artistic twist to a classic Olympic competition.

RUFUS CAPPADOCIA’s ROOTS QUARTET
Barbes

Thursday, Aug 9

The cellist draws from “the similarities between seemingly diverse music forms such as blues, Sufi, Middle Eastern and even Gregorian chant.”.

OLIVIA SALVADORI/PILLARS AND TONGUES/DJ HIRO KONE
Zebulon
AUG 4, 2012

Overturn Theater’s rendition of : Waiting for Godot
Arts@renaissance
August 2st – 18th, 7pm

Overturn’s artistic director Kristy Dodson has placed Samuel Beckett’s 1953 Godot in an former medical ward in North Brooklyn. Starring Joshua Levine (Off Bway’s Channeling Kevin Spacey ) Casey Greig (Off Bway’s Pure Confidence) James Fauvell, & Daniel Piper Kublick with set design by Cara Shih, lighting design by Jennifer Schriever, fight choreography by Casey Robinson, and sound design & costume design by Kristy Dodson. Overturn’s Godot will be running for three weeks August 2st – 18th(Wednesdays -Saturdays) at 7pm at Arts@Renaissance, 2 Kingsland Ave. BK, NY Garden level.

SCOTT TIXIER & ISOPROPYL BOP
Cornelia St Cafe
Sunday,  Aug 05 – 8:30PM

Violinist Scott Tixier is an award-winning recording artist, named as “Rising Star Violin” in the 60th Annual critics poll Downbeat. He is a true innovator on his instrument and is quickly becoming known as the new voice of jazz violin. He has earned international recognition for his playing.

M. Ward,Yo La Tengo, Wyatt Cenac (of The Daily Show)
Prospect Park Bandshell

Tue, August 7, 2012

Benefit concert to support free programming at Celebrate Brooklyn! a Performing Arts Program of BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn.

AMPLIFIED QUARTET – Jeremiah Cymerman, Peter Evans, Nate Wooley, Matt Bauder
Roulette
Thursday, August 9, 2012 @ 8:00 pm

Jeremiah Cymerman (clarinet, electronics) Matt Bauder (sax, electronics) Peter Evans (trumpet, amplifier) Nate Wooley (trumpet, amplifier)
After several performances as an amplified ensemble, the intense and uncompromising quartet of woodwind players Jeremiah Cymerman & Matt Bauder and trumpeters Nate Wooley & Peter Evans will convene at Roulette for two days of rehearsing & workshopping, leading up to a performance on August 9th.

PULVERIZE THE SOUND/AURAL DYSTOPIA
The Grand Victory
Wednesday, August 8, 2012

An evening of punishingly heavy improv: PULVERIZE THE SOUND (Peter Evans/Tim Dahl/Mike Pride), SHEAJOY (Stuart Popejoy/Kevin Shea), BURNING GENITALS (Jamie Saft solo).

The Alaev Family (New York debut)
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Aug 8 at 7:30

The propulsive doyra hand drums of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, drive the ecstatic sound of “Bucharian Groove” band the Alaev Family, who immigrated to Israel in 1991. The Alaevs blend together the sounds of Turkey, Persia, China, and Russia alongside lyrics by Tajiki poets on their latest album, produced by Balkan Beat Box’s Tamir Muskat, which captures the fire and drive of their live shows.

NoTornado
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
ZirZamen 90 W. Houston St., NY, NY

Fay Victor and Anders Nilsson’s Exposed Blues Duo, Ed Pastorini, Jonathan Wood Vincent

GREEN SCREEN
Cornelia St Cafe
Wednesday,  Aug 08 – 8:30PM 
“Green Screen” was formed by the meeting of 3 musicians that were playing the Big Apple Circus. In contemporary music circles, the circus probably doesn’t hold much respect. But, the history of circus musicians would surprise most. According to Joe De Mare, ( Bronx trumpeter who played with Louie Prima ) – “back in the day , all the big bands got their cats from the circus – ( including Count Basie and Duke Ellington ) – these cats had chops and endurance. They could play ANYTHING. “
Under the Mattress
303 10th Ave.
August 2-25

Under the Mattress is a solo exhibition of works by Billy Frey. The collages are done by hand using original vintage materials and imagery, primarily from magazines fromt he 1930’s to the 80’s. With bold and often complex patterns of re-appropriated images, he offers us tales that are humorous, dark disturbing, playful, perverse, and fantastical. Frey is heavily influenced by classic film, comic book art, cartoons, surrealist film and literature. The collages represent a fusion of times past and present, creating an environment where time is non-linear. Within our minds, it is happening all at once. A place where the 30’s and the 60’s can do a dance together, unaware of the fact that time has already come and gone.

Heritage Sunday AYITI RASANBLE!
Hearst Plaza
August 5, 1pm

Ayiti Rasanble! (“Haiti, come together!”) celebrates the indomitable spirit of the Caribbean nation with dance and musical groups reflecting its resilience and pride. Feet of Rhythm Afro-Haitian Dance Company works to preserve traditional dance forms under the vision of founder Nadia Dieudonné, the dancer and choreographer best known for her infectious interpretations of banda, the dance of Ghede, the revered Haitian spiritual figure of the underworld.

Christopher Smith: Underbody
site95 @ Launch F18, New York, NY
August 6 – 18, 2012

In “Underbody,” Smith continues his investigation into the usage of current technology and assembly line manufactured materials to break beyond the traditional two-dimensional form of painting. The 14-minute projection of foaming paint drips across a 9 x 6 ft Plexiglas surface.

S!CK MAGIC W EGYPTRIXX//SINJIN HAWKE//N0ms//GOBBY//MIKEQ//REZZIE//RPEG//TOMAϟϟ
285 Kent
Saturday, Aug 4, 11:30pm until 4:00am

JENNY ODELL: THE FOSSILIZED PRESENT
Breeze Block Gallery
Wed. Aug. 1, 5:30-8

Interpreting the inhuman experience bred from modern technological advances that compose our commonplace environments, for the past two years Bay Area native Jenny Odell has been utilizing imagery taken from Google Satellite images in a commentary on the sanctification of otherwise mundane objects in our lives that are taken for granted. The show will feature eighteen prints displaying Odell’s unique interpretation on the alienation of this perspective provided by the revealing landscape that she manipulates in her distinct evaluation of our surroundings.

Alex Gingrow: All the money IS in the label
Mike Weiss
August 2, 2012 – September 1, 2012

Mike Weiss Gallery is pleased to present All the money IS in the label by Brooklyn based artist Alex Gingrow.  For her first solo exhibition, Alex Gingrow presents dozens of obsessively rendered drawings on paper loaded with cutting, antagonistic humor and a quick trigger finger pointed at the heart of the art world.   Over the past five years while working at a midtown frame shop, the artist has collected snippets of sordid conversations overheard from chief art world players as well as from peers working at entry- level positions within art institutions.   The resulting works are incredibly revealing, and often baiting epitaphs of insider conversations, reified and displayed, ironically within a frame.  With a snarky, sharp wit and a healthy dose of self-deprecation, Gingrow implicates all levels of the “establishment” including Gagosian, Hirst and Warhol, the New Museum and even our own Mike Weiss Gallery.

Midsummer’s Mayhem Poetry & Pub Crawl
Just Lorraine’s Place
Saturday, August 4, 2012

Skewered Syntax returns to Harlem for the Midsummer’s Mayhem Poetry & Pub Crawl. All who want to participate, or who bear witness to one of the greatest New York City literary spectcles are invited to gather in front of Just Lorraine’s Place at 8:00 PM with poem in hand or heart. After Featured Poets April Jones, Matthew Hupert, Robert Gibbons and Zev Torres open up the ceremonies, there will be an open mic, followed by drinks. Then we’ll take a short walk to the next venue where we’ll recite more poetry, imbibe a little more and move on once again. There’s no cost to join our merry band of poetic artisans or to recite your own pieces, but everyone pays for his or her own drinks.

Rockaway Pipeline Day of Awareness Action
Jacob Riis Park
AUG 4, SAT

Please join members of the Coalition Against the Rockaway Pipeline this Saturday August, 4th at Jacob Riis Park to gather signatures on the boardwalk, and distribute information opposing this pipeline!

Lucinda Williams
The Bowery Ballroom
Mon, August 6, 2012

It’s not all that hard to find an artist who’s capable of offering a guided tour of life’s dark clouds – nor is it rare to come into contact with one who can hone in on the silver lining. But the ability to do both with equal grace, well, that’s an altogether rarer gift – and it’s one that Lucinda Williams displays with remarkable élan on her latest Lost Highway album, Blessed.

M Shanghai String Band and Friends 10th ANNIVERSARY SHOW
Jalopy
Saturday, August 4

The Red Hook Ramblers Live Music with Silent Films
Jalopy
Sunday, August 5

COMING UP: 
The Fall of the American Movie Palace

THE WEEK: Dec 5-9.

MONDAY:

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.

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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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THE WEEK: NOV 21-25.

MONDAY:

From #occupy to revolution
Jed Brandt, Mike Ely, Eric Riebellarsi
Jed Brandt is an editor with the Occupied Wall Street  Journal, and together with Eric Ribellarsi, has recently returned from deep investigations into the “movement of the squares” in Greece and the revolutionary movement in Nepal. Mike Ely is a veteran revolutionary whose political life started with the early SDS and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and covers decades of experience attempting to build revolutionary organization, including among coal miners in the wildcat strike movements of the 1970s. All three are participants in the Kasama Project — a communist effort to re-imagine and regroup for  revolution in the U.S. All have been active in the Occupy Together movement in different cities.

Robert Ashley:That Morning Thing
A remounting of Robert Ashley’s legendary opera. That Morning Thing was performed only three times (Ann Arbor, MI, Oakland, CA and Tokyo, Japan) in the late 1960s, but the opera acquired its reputation through rumor and the famous recordings of two sections, Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon and She Was A Visitor.

The Oven: AND HUMBABA CAME FROM HIS STRONG HOUSE OF CEDAR
Creative Sounds of Dissension 
JOAN DIDION in conversation with Sloane Crosley
The Secret Science Club presents paleoanthropologist, fossil hunter, and human evolution expert William Harcourt-Smith
Bailey Cooke/Time Travelers/Graham Lee Smith
Dance Film Lab Showcase
Chibi-rific Manga Drawing Workshop with Misako Rocks
Moonshot Magazine’s “Secret Issue” Reading and Release Party
Opre! A Symposium on Romani (Gypsy) Musics and Cultures
ALIEN COMIC / SALLEY MAY AND FRIENDS
Felix and Dexter
Blake Mackey/Mercies/Beet Juice / Kristy Kruger
1751 EASY STREET :: ARTIST TALK
NEW AMSTERDAM RECORD’S DOUBLE-RELEASE EVENT
CANSTRUCTION 

TUESDAY:

Citizen Cartography Workshop: Build a Virtual Atlas of New York
Help NYPL build the geospatial library of the future! This workshop (which takes place the three times a month) will get you oriented with the a set of tools the Library has developed (available at maps.nypl.org) that enables librarians and the general public to add valuable geographic context to old maps. The workshop will focus on the core activity of the website: georectification, or “warping” maps. This means overlaying digital images of historic maps onto a contemporary digital map (similar to Google Maps), transforming them into tiles of a virtual atlas.

THE STORY COLLIDER: BODIES IN MOTION
From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor, science is everywhere in our lives. Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven’t seen a test tube since 8th grade, science affects and changes us. We all have a story about science, and at The Story Collider, we want to hear those stories.

The Underdeveloped and Overexposed Life and Death of Deena Domino
E.S.P. TV Episodes 8-10 Screening Party

PHARMACOPHORE: ARCHITECTURAL PLACEBO

Myles Manley/The Lost Shores/Tom Devaney (of Rotary Club)/Johann
Researching Family History @ the Schomburg Center
CROSSING BOUNDARIES
GRADUATE POETS SERIES/TAKSIM
SALLIE FORD AND THE SOUND OUTSIDE/QUIET LIFE
Jean-Frédéric Schnyder
THE FUNES
Someone’s Trying to Kill Me 

WENESDAY: 

ANDRU BEMIS @ROOTS AND RUCKUS
Video@Hubertus – Screening of videos by Paul McCarthy
MARY BEARD
PERFECT SENSE/RYAN BLOTNICK’S 04646/TATTOOS AND MUSHROOMS FEATURING: MICHAEL BLAKE 

THURSDAY:

THANKSGIVING!

FRIDAY:

Jack Smith
Few artists can be said to have had a greater influence on the history of experimental cinema, queer cinema, and performance art than Jack Smith (1932–1989). Smith was an antic performer who played to the cheap seats, flamboyantly and tragicomically overwrought in the manner of Theda Bara, Maria Montez, Gloria Swanson, and Dorothy Lamour. His style of camp blended Hollywood orientalism, burlesque, kitsch, polymorphous sexuality, and social satire. Caustically funny, politically trenchant, and defiantly intolerant of intolerance, he provoked police raids and censorial judges, and created a beautiful, haunting, poignant, outrageous, orgiastic body of work that transformed the artistic landscape of the New York underground—a culture also being shaped in profoundly radical ways by Andy Warhol, Tony Conrad, Ken Jacobs, Ron Rice, the Kuchars, Jonas Mekas, the Velvet Underground, Charles Ludlam, and Susan Sontag—as well as inspiring a subsequent generation of artists, including Richard Foreman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Christophe Schlingensief, Laurie Anderson, Derek Jarman, Nan Goldin, Robert Wilson Jack Goldstein, Mike Kelley, Pipilotti Rist, Vaginal Davis, Cindy Sherman, Guy Maddin, Ryan Trecartin, John Waters, Vivienne Dick, The Cockettes, John Bock, and countless others.

PERFORMA 11
Performa 11, the fourth edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, will be held in New York City from November 1–21, 2011. The three-week biennial will showcase new work by more than 100 of the most exciting artists working today, in an innovative program breaking down the boundaries between visual art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, graphic design, and the culinary arts. Presented in collaboration with a consortium of more than 50 arts institutions and over 50 curators, as well as a network of public spaces and private venues across the city, Performa 11 will ignite New York City with energy and ideas, acting as a vital “think tank” linking minds across the five boroughs and bringing audiences together for brilliant new performances in all disciplines.

Aid and Abet: Working With NGOs
Sonnambula
RON AGAM AND TONY SOULIÉ
Rona Yefman
THE STONE
American Letters 1927-1947: Jackson Pollock & Family
An Auteurist History of Film
Dead Laptop Series
SPANKIN’ STEPHEN’S MONDAY NIGHT PUB QUIZ
Carsten Höller: Experience
Street Scenes / Visual Narrative
Observatory: 
the ephemera: an exhibition by James Walsh
BRAIN CLOUD
Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art
CHASE GRANOFF: INTUITION IS PRECEDING OVER MY UNDERSTANDING
WHERE AM I?: The tactile experience of sculpture work
The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora: A 60 Year Retrospective
C.I.C.T. / Théātre des Bouffes du Nord Fragments
A BREAK FROM CONTENT: JASON MIDDLEBROOK
DEATHSCAPE
The Cherry Orchard
OPEN INVITATION FOR ACTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS DAY
Simon Denny:Corporate Video Decisions
Behind the Curtains of XXI Century Communism

UPCOMING:

Jerry Walden 

THE WEEK: Nov 15-18.

TUESDAY:

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 BrooklynHorns 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 EarthTerri), Bob Ray (Total Badass) and many more.

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The Week: June 6-10.


June 5-11

Vision Festival 16Arts For Art, Inc. presents the 16th annual Vision Festival, New York City’s premier multidisciplinary celebration of innovative jazz music, dance, poetry, and art, held for its third year at the Abrons. Critics have described it as “arguably the most important free-jazz fest in the U.S.” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader), and stated that “avant-garde jazz culture has no better colloquy in this country than the Vision Festival” (Nate Chinen, The New York Times).

Each year, the Vision Festival honors the achievements of one living artist who has greatly influenced the world around them and paved the way for other innovators to move forward. On Wednesday, June 8, Arts For Art and The Vision Festival will celebrate a Lifetime of Achievement by Peter Brotzmann. This great improviser was one of the first practitioners of the Free Jazz movement in Europe. Brotzmann has programmed his own evening in such a way that it would reflect his ongoing pursuit of musical innovation. This 70-year-old artist is not interested in looking back — only in looking forward and being as creative as possible in the present.

Visit visionfestival.org for more information and listings of Vision Festival events at satellite sites. (SEE FULL SCHEDULE.)

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THE WEEKEND May 13-14.

MakerBot Make-A-Thon // Experience Cutting-Edge Rapid Prototyping

MakerBot Make-A-Thon
Saturday, May 14th, 2:00 – 6:00 pm
195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn NY
FREE

The MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is 1) a modern manufacturing breakthrough, and 2) also a lot of fun.

The 3rd Ward MakerBot Make-A-Thon is your chance to see these tiny factories in action, print awesome 3D objects and even a 3D portrait of yourself.

MakerBot Artist-in-Residence Kyle McDonald will be presenting his work turning the Xbox Kinect into a 3D Scanner.  He will scan you in his 3D Photo Booth, then print you using the MakerBot.

The Makerbot prints anything up to 4”x5”x5” with ABS and PLA (biodegradable) plastic. All you do is hit print, and the machine does all the work. Print 100 butterflies, an entire chess set — anything! And see a 9 foot-wide geodesic dome, printed entirely on the MakerBot.

Learn more about the MakerBot and the 3rd Ward Make-A-Thon in The New York Times here.

Plus, win prizes from MakerBotApress Books, and MAKE Magazine!

RSVPs are required at http://www.3rdward.com/rsvp

MakerBot Industries was named one of the top 20 startups in NYC, and has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, Make: Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, Financial Times, NPR, The Economist and others. For more information on MakerBot, click here and see photos of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic here.

Learn more about Kyle McDonald’s Xbox Kinect hack in this 3rd Ward blog post.


BYE BYE KITTY @JAPAN SOCIETY. Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art
Friday, March 18 — Sunday, June 12

Bye Bye Kitty!!! is a radical departure from recent Japanese exhibitions. Moving far beyond the stereotypes of kawaii and otaku culture, Japan Society’s show features sixteen emerging and mid-career artists whose paintings, objects, photographs, videos, and installations meld traditional styles with challenging visions of Japan’s troubled present and uncertain future.

Buy the Catalog
Admission & Gallery Hours


MY W. B. YEATS

Timothy Donnelly, Philip Levine, and Rosanna Warren, with Eamon Grennan

Saturday, May 14, 2:30pm
MAP

An event curated by noted Irish poet Eamon Grennan, with American poets reading and responding to Yeats’ work and exploring the influence of this literary giant on their own poetry.

Co-sponsored by Culture Ireland, the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at Lincoln Center, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Admission is free.

Bruno Walter Auditorium
111 Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street


THE BLACK LIGHT LOUNGE@ SECRET PROJECT ROBOT.

Saturday, May 14 8-11pm.
How awesome would it be to walk into a room filled salon style with black light posters and art!?  This Spring Secret Project Robot creates the long awaited fluorescent opulence.  Over 30 artists participate to transform the gallery into a black light cocktail lounge.

THE ART OF MONEY: PERSONAL FINANCE RESOURCES FOR ARTISTS
WEBSITE

Join the Department of Cultural Affairs, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, and Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment for a day of FREE financial counseling sessions and workshops designed to help working artists, arts administrators, and independent workers reduce debt and manage credit.

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2011
Information Fair, Workshops and Counseling Sessions 12 PM – 5 PM
Post Event Reception 5 PM – 7 PM
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation | 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216

OPENING REMARKS BY
Kate D. LevinCommissioner, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
Marty MarkowitzBrooklyn Borough President
Jimmy Van BramerNew York City Council Member and Chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries & International Intergroup Relations
Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., New York City Council Member and Chair of the Finance Committee
Colvin GrannumPresident, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
Danny SimmonsChair of New York State Council on the Arts and Artist



Love Your Library Day!

Saturday, May 14, 10 AM – 3 PM
Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

As Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) faces a city budget cut that could reduce library hours, materials and free programs, we need your support!

Show your elected officials how much you love BPL by coming to this important, fun event on Central Library’s Plaza.

10 AM – 3 PM: Book, T-shirt and tote bag sale
10 AM – 12 PM: Performance by BPL’s own Lost in the Stacks
12 – 1 PM: Advocacy rally
1 PM: Performance by Vo-Duo, a group inspired by the vodou music traditions of Haiti

You can also use our computers to email your elected officials to say NO to budget cuts and remind them how much your library means to you.

Suggested donation for the event is $5. This donation, as well as proceeds from book, T-shirt and tote bag sales, will help purchase new library materials.


CROSSING ART GALLERY
Saturday, May 14 from 6 to 9 PM

136-17 39th Avenue
Flushing, NY 11354

QMAD, Queens Media Arts Development, in partnership with Crossing Art Gallery, presents the First Annual Performance Art Festival of Queens featuring new works by local, national and international performance artists.  This year’s program, ITINERANT, focuses on works that treat notions of displacement, delivery, and transformation.  Participating artists use performance narratives and actions that evoke immediacy and intimacy to bridge the gap of communication and distance. (READ MORE.)


Shadow-stalkers and Resurrected Chickens:
Animals on the Road to Paradise

Saturday, May 14 at 7 pm
$5 admission
MAP

Stories about the journey to paradise, in religious and literary traditions, feature animals as both obstacles and allies.
In Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, Grendel is the “shadow-stalker” the hero must slay
to prove himself and attain an earthly paradise; on the medieval pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela, Spain,
there is still an ornate chicken coop housing a pure white rooster and hen in the cathedral in one town
to commemorate a pilgrim’s miraculous escape from disaster.

What beasts block our roads or assist us on the way?

Rev. Craig Townsend presents an evening of tales, images, and soundscape evoking and exploring
the human-animal interactions that illuminate both the journey and its goal.  

Craig Townsend is an Episcopal priest serving as Vicar at St. James’ Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
He has a Ph.D. from Harvard that, while focused on American religious history, also entailed
the study of the world’s major religious traditions.

Please visit the Proteus Gowanus website for more news and information about upcoming events.

SXIP SHIREY’s B-DAY at Joe’s Pub.
Saturday, May 14 at 9 pm
MAP

It’s my birthday next month and as a present to myself I’m doing a big “solo show” at Joe’s Pub with some of my very favorite NYC artists who I haven’t had a chance to perform with much or at all. (Aside from Adam but…he’s ADAM) Adam Matta, Ned Rothenberg, Terry Dame, Rachelle Garniez, Racheal Price, Sonny Singh and Xavier.

I will be presenting an expanded version of the Sxipenspiel. I also have a new device called a gravity marble tree…and a perfect Sam Cook styled R & B tune to be sung by Xaxier. I am going to do “Ring My Bell with Rachel Price and I’ll be performing an improv piece with the amazing Ned Rothenberg. PLUS I do a rendition of a composition by Shelley Segal.Very exited to announce that Mathias Kunzli will be the percussionist for the evening.


A brief interview with Sxip about the show and participants:

THE 22: Variations and experiments in breath seem to play a large role in both yours and Ned’s work. Besides the fact that you both play reed instruments do you feel you push the boundaries of the human body as a musical tool?

SXIP SHIREY: I don’t think I am pushing the boundaries of the human body honestly. Back in my 20s when I wanted to be a punk Michael Hedges I ended up with tendinitis for two years. The first time Ned saw me play he commented on how tense I held my body when I played. He plays with such a focused relaxed quality and puts the intensity just in music. He circular breaths beautifully, which is pushing the body in a sense, but really what is great about him is the calm control of tones that are ever evolving and unwieldy. My playing is definitely a product directly of what my body is doing. Modern dancers sense this and they love my performance, but I don’t think I’m pushing the body, I am pushing the instrument. Oh shit..I just reread the question. I see what you are asking now. I didn’t think of breath as pushing the boundaries of the human body as a musical tool, I just did it. Breath is a rhythm we all understand deeply, it is the most intimate rhythm we make that we can easily hear (unlike a heart beat), there is incredible power in making this intimate sound epic. I am ever creating a palette of compelling of sounds that that I can draw from to take me and the audience to effective places.

THE 22: What are you thoughts on the traditions in music versus the basic elemental pleasure of sound? Is either more important?

SXIP SHIREY: I am finding this question hard to answer. It’s not that either is important or not important. It’s just not the issue. I make sound and music because I have to. It’s what I have to do, sometimes it’s a song with guitar, sometimes it’s playing folks songs, sometimes it’s rolling marbles in glass bowls, sometimes it’s tweaking virtual synths on the computer. It’s all the same to me.

THE 22: What about each of these musician’s appeal to you in collaboration and why did you chose to share this birthday celebration with them?

SXIP SHIREY:They are musicians who have an immediately strong seductive presence the moment they play or sing. They are people I simply like hearing and will go out to hear when I am in NYC. I thought it would be great to actually play with them. Most of them are not my normal collaborators.

THE 22: Can you tell us a little about the SxipenspieI and gravity marble tree?

SXIP SHIREY: The Sxipenspiel is perhaps my favorite birthday gift of all time. I was on tour with Amanda Palmer and Jason Webely’s Evelyn Evelyn tour and my birthday fell on a day we were in Berlin. Amanda and Neil went to a flea market in Berlin and bought these great bicycle bells that do a trilling long tone. They mounted them on a candlestick with a bent copper pipe at the top and dubbed it “The Sxipenspiel”. It’s a totally awkward instrument that sounds somehow amazing. I’ve learned to play it gracefully and I play it a lot. There is something magical sounding about it.

Bells historically are used to give us directions. “it’s time to go to church” “come to the door I am here” ” the egg is done cooking”. There is certain power to use them as a compositional element because their sound stimulates those parts of the brain.

Also check out the WSJ article.

THE 22 MAGAZINE PRESENTS: The Three Furies, Writing with a Vengeance

Sunday, May 15—5:00pm
A Gathering of the Tribes
285 East Third Street (between Ave C & D) #2
(212) 674-3778
A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES
THE 22 MAGAZINE
MAP

Known as “the Angry Ones” in Greek myth, the Furies were a trio of vengeful women born from the blood drops of the castrated appendage of Uranus (whose Titan son, Cronus, did him a dirty turn). They were psychological tormentors, the personification of vindictiveness and retribution. In art they were represented as winged creatures wearing nothing but snakes. In this reading by emerging writers Jamey Bradbury, Ansel Elkins, and Thera Webb—recent graduates of the MFA program in creative writing at University of North Carolina-Greensboro—they will forego niceties and read from an unforgiving selection of their latest work. If you’re bored with bucolic love poems, or have recently be wronged by a paramour, this Gathering of the Tribes is the place to savor the sweet taste of revenge.

Ansel Elkins

has poems appearing this spring in Boston Review, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, The American Scholar, The Believer and The Southern Review. She is one of four winners of the 2011 “Discovery”/Boston Review poetry prize. She lives in North Carolina.

Jamey Bradbury

has appeared in Black Warrior Review and is forthcoming in Zone 3. She is a literary assistant in Vermont, and is working on her first novel and a collection of short stories.

Thera Webb

is a radical feminist and resident of Brooklyn. She received her MFA in poetry from UNC Greensboro, and has had work in Fiction (JP) and Forklift, Ohio. Her chapbook, On The Shoulders of the Bear, was released this fall from Fractious Press.