SWIMMING CITIES in collaboration with SEA WORTHY present: A Celebration of The Battle for Mau Mau Island with Rusty Lazer (New Orleans, Bounce.), Dirtyfinger (Black Label), Geko Jones (Que Bajo?.) and Barney Iller (Rubulad).
Last weekend the naval gangs of New York assembled to Battle for Mau Mau Island (see photos here). Come see the fallen soldiers, harvested booty, and glorious victors at a new two-story space in Bed-Stuy. Mau Mau gangs, gladiator raft jousting, cocktail catacombs, clothing optional watergun fight, underground casino & film screenings of eerily beautiful movies set on the water, slide show and videos of the battle, and an awards presentation for the victors. Wet & wild all night long.
$5 for gangs in matching costumes, Mau Mau vets, or before 11pm, $10 otherwise; 21+.
All proceeds go directly to the Swimming Cities India project.
In his magnum opus, Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon introduces us to the German concept of Brenschluss in the telemetry of the flight of the V2 rocket. The rocket is propelled by its engines and travels along its parabolic arc. At a certain point the engines turn off, this flameout is called brenschluss. At brenschluss the rocket’s ascendancy is checked by gravity, and before it begins to fall to its target on earth, it hesitates for just a moment. After this moment gravity and momentum alone, not a rocket engine, define the inexorable trajectory of descent to its inevitable, calamitous end. (READ MORE.)
Harvey Stein has been a fixture on the New York photo scene for many years. He has photographed the city from every angle with every kind of camera, at every time of day and night. Beyond these shores he has led photographic seminars and workshops all over the world…He’s gone everywhere, and for the last 40 years he’s been going to Coney Island…where New York City flows into the Atlantic Ocean at the end of Ocean Avenue, in Brooklyn.
(TOP video, Song: The Surface of the Ocean
Matt Lavelle: composition and alto clarinet
Jason Kao Hwang: viola
Lola Danza: vocals
Francois Grillot: bass
Recorded,mixed,and mastered by Francois Grillot http://www.myspace.com/mattlavelle
Friday May 27th, 8pm: François Grillot Contraband
Catherine Sikora – reeds
Roy Campbell – trumpet
Anders Nilsson – guitar
Daniel Levin – cello
François Grillot – bass and compositions
Jay Rosen – drums
Rhythm in the Kitchen Music Festival @ The Church of All Nations 410 West 57th Street, $10
The ever-changing arena of contemporary art presents endless challenges for those who find themselves caught in its currents. From white cube gallery exhibits to brick wall paste-ups and graffiti, the push and pull of what is important, relevant, or dismissible can be both distracting and empowering. (READ MORE.)
SUPERCODA PRESENTS:
Show 1 (Friday, 5/27. 9-midnight) : Mamie Minch, Eliza Rickman (LA), Anomylos @CAFE ORWELL.
http://www.myspace.com/mamieminch –
As devilishly funny, irrepressible and irreverent as the former Roulette Sisters frontwoman is live, a lot of this album is rivetingly dark. Minch’s solo debut is a sparse, terse collection of both original and classic acoustic blues songs, several of them imbued with Minch’s signature wit, but it also shows off an altogether different side of her writing. As any good blueswoman knows, the blues can pack a mighty emotional wallop, and Minch sings with an unflinching honesty, even anguish in places. Minch’s soulful, passionate alto voice resounds over old-school instrumentation.
Come celebrate the end of another season at the Poetry Project! The Poets’ Potluck is an opportunity for New York City’s poetry community(ies) to come together for an evening of readings, performances, and delicious food. An array of writers from the Poetry Project series as well as other local reading series will read/perform their work. Any one interested in bringing a dish for the potluck will contribute to an amazing feast. If you’re interested in bringing food, please email Brett Price at fridaynightseriesp@gmail.com.
VIDEOROVER: Season II Curated by: Rachel Steinberg
May 27 – Dec 17, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, May 27, 7-9 PM
Screening begins at 8 PM
910 Grand St Brooklyn, NY
NURTUREart Non-Profit is pleased to present VIDEOROVER: Season II, the second installment of its semi-annual video series. VIDEOROVER: Season II is curated by Rachel Steinberg and features artists: Fatima Al Qadiri and Lyndsy Welgos, Cecilia Bonilla, Juan Pablo Echeverri, Derek Larson, Dana Levy, Pernille With Madsen, Colin Snapp, and JULIACKS.
VIDEOROVER seeks to present a wide range of works from artists locally and internationally who are all working to expand the perceptual limitations of video. This season’s selection aims to disorient viewers by removing an essential reality context, only to redeposit them into seemingly familiar settings.
Dana Levy, Fatima Al Qadiri and Lyndsy Welgos explore the pluralism of eastern and western conventions by looking at traditions through a contemporary perspective. Cecilia Bonilla examines our relationships to the seductive nature of commercial images of women through minimal manipulation, while Juan Pablo Echeverri shows us a self-projected fantasy of mass-produced femininity. Colin Snapp acts as a ‘journalist’ of sorts, documenting moments of real-time, but relieving the viewer of imposed intentions. Pernille With Madsen dizzies and disorients us with a vision of how to imagine architectural surroundings. Derek Larson’s playful experimentations extend through other worldly humor while JULIACKS’ narrative pulls back and forth between a character’s inner psyche and external world. (READ MORE.)
See “Knitting is for Pus****” for the last time (in NYC) and like never before… with a **SPECIAL BLACK LIGHT PRESENTATION!**
On Friday May 27th, 2011 Christopher Henry Gallery NYC will host a Closing Party for Celebrity Artist OLEK. Olek’s acclaimed installation “Knitting is for Pus****” has created a total sensation since it 1st opened back in September 2010. It traveled to SCOPE MIAMI, and was extended repeatedly due to pop…ular demand and endless press requests… next it will be highlighted in a traveling museum show called “40 Under 40″ opening at The SMITHSONIAN Museum in 2012!
Two terrific improvisers are on tour and will be performing one night in NYC , Joe Burgio and Andrew Eisenberg, two of Boston’s most creative and strongest performers.
Carol Liebowitz (pno)
Adam Caine (gtr)
Claire DeBrunner (bsn)
Ratzo Harris (bs)
Joe Burgio (movement/dance)
Andrew Eisenberg (percussion/found objects)
Chris Welcome (gtr)
Shayna Dulberger (b)
Elliot Levin (sx)
Tom Zlabinger (b)
John Wagner (dr)
Take the 61 bus to Ryerson from jay street the AC and F trains transfer at jay street. The 54 bus is also a good option. You would take it to the bus stop b/t ryerson and grand. the subways that transfer are the 2 and 3 at Hoyt St as Well as the BMQR at Dekalb ave. Also the L train takes you to the 61 bus at N 6 and Driggs. You Could also take the G Train to Classon.
Join Marguerite Dabaie and tons of rad zinesters at Pete’s Candy Store for the upcoming Mini Zine Fest!
Saturday, May 28th
3PM – 7PM More info
Pub(l)ic Identities: Reading Medical Representations of Sex
An illustrated lecture with medical artist Shelley Wall Date: Saturday, May 28th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
“It’s a girl!” “It’s a boy!”… The genitals, those body parts conventionally expected to remain most hidden, are also the first and most powerful shapers of our public identity. In this illustrated talk, medical artist Shelley Wall considers how sexual anatomy, gendered bodies, and dimorphic sex have been represented in the visual discourse of medicine. From early anatomical atlases through to present-day clinical illustrations and the Visible Human datasets, medical imagery has influenced ideas about sexual identity and what it means to be “normal”.
540 W. 26th Street, Chelsea
In Nocturnes, Bickerton’s third solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, the artist revisits mankind’s antithetical attraction and repulsion to the grotesque, exotic, and sexual. Whereas previous works depicted abundant worlds of health, happiness, family, and cohesion, Bickerton has become disillusioned with the brilliance and wholesomeness that colored these preceding works, now drawing inspiration from the phrase ‘twisting and flapping in the neon wilderness’. For more information and to view images from the the exhibition,Click here
Show 2 (Saturday, May 28th 9-midnight): Nick Lyons Trio, Yoni Kretzmer Double Bass Quartet (Yoni Kretzmer/Ruben Radding/Sean Conly/Mike Pride), Jessie Nelson Trio (Jessie Nelson/Todd Martino/Conner Martinez)
Works by: Chris Astley, Carlton DeWoody, Ethan Long, Steven and William, Suzanne Sattler, Chris Dunbar, Antonia Wright, Ruben Millares, Wayne Adams, Paul Bloodgood, Sally French, Allyn Bromley, Stephen Freedman, Deborah Nehmad, Evan Ryer, Michael Joaquin Grey, Project Lab @ PS58, Aaron Padilla, John Silvis, Anne Pearce, Andrew Zuckerman, Jennifer Mills, Robin Kang, Ian Trask. Artists Bios here
Through a variety of processes connected to the act of weaving, Through The Warp presents seven different approaches to the same overarching structure—material building upon material via linear repetition and overlap. From woven fibers and pigments to language and pixels, artistsJoell Baxter, Karl Erickson, John Houck, Beryl Korot, Jamisen Ogg, Mike Paré and Lawrence Weiner engage with this ancient framework in ways that warp prior perceptions of familiar structures, or even put forth a new language altogether. (READ MORE.)
SUNDAY: MAY 29th
Class: Mummification @OBSERVATORY
Date: Sunday, May 29th (sold out, but see newly added class info here)
Time: 1-4 PM
Admission: $60 *** Must RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com in order to attend this class; Class size limited to 15 people
In today’s class, learn the mummification process as described in the “Egyptian Book of the Dead” (Book of Coming Forth By Day). Instructor Sorceress Cagliastro will guide students in the use of the traditional materials–such as natron salts, canopic jars, oils and herbs, dried flowers and linen or gauze wraps–and traditional ritual–such as ritual of the opening of the mouth–in the creation of an authentic and perfectly respected animal mummy. Each student will leave class with an animal mummy of their own making. (READ MORE.)
Sunday, May 29th, from 6-1030, Papacookie Hosts a Special Super Coda Soundproofing Benefit Wonderful Show Time Vegetarian Potluck, Festively. Featuring:
Papacookie is a private residence apartment fantasy world atop the Upper West Side. Here’s the address:
201 W. 86th st. The Belnord
Apt. 806 (tell the doorman you are here to see Jonathan Vincent)
Non-flesh potluck at 6
Exquisite Music to begin at 7.
We will be asking everyone for donations. This show is a fundraiser to soundproof Cafe Orwell so the Super Coda may continue.
Here’s the Kickstarter campaign we’ve been running so you know what I am talking about –http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/827158541/keep-the-super-coda-living-through-creative-soundp
Jim Sullivan at Nancy Hoffman Gallery
May 26-July 1, 2011
The next exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery will be new graphite drawings of trees by Jim Sullivan, opening on May 26th and continuing through July 1st. This is the artist’s
first solo show in six years, and reveals a new vista onto nature. His last show included a series of horizontal landscapes, wide cinematic views into invented
detailed oriented oils. The artist delighted in painting myriad details. These were obsessive paintings,
and as the artist says: “The new drawings, the work of the past five years, present the same viewing issues
as the long landscapes, in that they have normal viewing distance but offer a close scrutinizing experience
(of infinite detail) on closer examination.”
When: Tuesday, May 24 Where: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65 St., upper level (between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.), New York City What time:7 p.m.With Russell Banks, Col. Morris Davis, Peter Godwin, Beth Gutcheon, Rula Jebreal, Dahlia Lithwick, John Buffalo Mailer, Kati Marton, Jack Rice, Lili Taylor, Dianne Wiest, and others, with original artwork by Jenny Holzer.
Tickets: $12 general; $9 students; $8 seniors; $7 ACLU/PEN/FSLC Members. More information and tickets at www.filmlinc.com/films/series/reckoning-with-torture
“Reckoning With Torture: Memos and Testimonies From the ‘War on Terror,’” an evening of readings from formerly secret government documents detailing the scope and human cost of the United States’ post-9/11 torture program
Acclaimed director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fair Game) will direct this performance of “Reckoning” for the stage and is filming the event for a future documentary. Celebrated writers including Russell Banks, Peter Godwin, Beth Gutcheon, Rula Jebreal, Dahlia Lithwick, John Buffalo Mailer, and Kati Marton will join actors Lili Taylor and Dianne Wiest, along with former CIA case officer Jack Rice and former military prosecutor Col. Morris Davis for readings from formerly secret government documents detailing the scope and disastrous human cost of the U.S. torture program. The artist Jenny Holzer, whose work was the subject of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2009, has created original artwork for the “Reckoning” project.
Come learn about how to apply for housing opportunities through The Actors Fund, including The Schermerhorn, a permanent housing residence in downtown Brooklyn with reserved affordable space for actors and entertainment professionals. The Schermerhorn is co-sponsored by Common Ground and the The Actors Fund.
Housing at the The Schermerhorn is available to actors,screenwriters, musicians, dancers, editors, composers, set designers, producers, singers, directors and other performing arts and entertainment professionals. (READ MORE.)
WHERE: The Schermerhorn, 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Map.
WHEN: Tuesday, May 24th
Doors open and networking, 6:00-6:30 pm
Presentation and Q&A, 6:30-7:30 pm
The F Word The Legacy: Feminism in Literature Today 24 May, 2 p.m., Book Expo America, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 W 34th Street, New York 10001
Julie Otsuka, Francine Prose and Karen Russell talk about which writers passed feminism down to them, and what the word means to them today. For tickets, visit http://www.bookexpoamerica.com.
The F Word Launch Party in NYC 25 May, 6.30 p.m., Paragraph, 35 W 14th Street, New York 10011
Join Julie Otsuka and Francine Prose to celebrate the launch of the issue.(READ MORE.)
NEBULOUS TUSSLES@ CULTUREFIX. On May 25th in 1977, Star Wars came out in the theaters. I saw it in a drive-in theater two years later. And now I couldn’t care less. This is so much more exciting:
CULTUREfix & Jonathan Wood Vincent present:
NEBULOUS TUSSLES!
a night of unique song and dance
First: there will be:
Self-obsessed Jonathan Wood Vincent, playing the accordion and talking story-like about things of no particular importance just to wet your bustles.
Then: Enid Ellen, http://www.myspace.com/enidellen
In 2008, Enid Ellen was born: “I was writing poetry about specific men, and channeling a woman’s [point of] view,” says David Mramor about the feminine, earthly perspective that led him and pianist Greg Potter to create the songs on Enid Ellen’s debut album, Cannibal Disease. “There was a lot of anger and Mother Nature came forth and needed a vessel to speak through.” (READ MORE.)
Gonzalo Puch lives in Madrid, teaches at the University in Cuenca, and is a native of Sevilla. He creates situations or “incidents”, generally in neutral environments such as classrooms, or his own apartment, which he then records photographically and presents as large, color photographic prints. Although his working methods and environment are hermetic, the work itself addresses and tries to make order of the chaos of the world. His themes are linked to various traditional academic subjects such as math, science, music, biology and environmental studies. The settings are sparse and practical, well lit and benign. Recently he has been working in the landscape more immediately addressing environmental themes. However, the events taking place are inscrutable rituals or quiet procedures which are both serious and comic. They appear to have their own logic in which we can recognize the elements, but not their organization, like words without syntax.
Beginning in the fall of 2010, Puch maintained a year long artist’s residency at Location One in New York. As the title of the resulting series.A Temporary Garden suggests, Puch’s new work draws on the world of plants for its operative leit-motif. Leafy plants combine with busy line-drawings and assembled objects in one photograph; a bell pepper is carved into an ephemeral sculpture in another; and in yet another a twig and bits of colored thread are precariously organized into an image that brings to mind the traditional Chinese landscape drawing. In A Temporary Garden the line between the natural world and the world of artistic creation is not so much blurred as bridged — as it is in fact in any garden. (READ MORE.)
Date: Tuesday, May 24th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Tonight, join Dr. Rolf ter Sluis-–curator and director of the Netherlands based Groningen University Museum–for a virtual tour of the museum’s historic and amazing anatomy and pathology collections. The majority of the collection consists of preparations in spirit, but also includes dry preparations where the veins have been injected with coloured wax, wax and Papier-mâché models, skeletons and skulls, preserved tattooed skin, and much more. (READ MORE.)
During the golden age of safaris in the early twentieth century, one man set out to preserve Africa’s great beasts. In his new book Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man’s Quest to Preserve the World’s Great Animals, Jay Kirk details the life and adventures of naturalist and taxidermist Carl Akeley, the brooding genius who revolutionized taxidermy and created the famed African Hall we visit today at New York’s Museum of Natural History. The Gilded Age was drawing to a close, and with it came the realization that men may have hunted certain species into oblivion. Renowned taxidermist Carl Akeley joined the hunters rushing to Africa, where he risked death time and again as he stalked animals for his dioramas and hobnobbed with outsized personalities of the era such as Theodore Roosevelt and P. T. Barnum. In a tale of art, science, courage, and romance, Jay Kirk resurrects a legend and illuminates a fateful turning point when Americans had to decide whether to save nature, to destroy it, or to just stare at it under glass. (READ MORE.)
Dana Rossi hosts a monthly merging of stories and songs in this legendary music venue. Six artists–writers, comics, actors and musicians–tell the stories they associate with songs of their choosing. There’s the song, the story behind the song, and the story inspired by the song. We’re the third one.
The storytellers and their songs for May 26, 2011 are…
Matthew Trumbull – Look Away/Chicago
Jon Baker – I Wanna Dance With Somebody/Whitney Houston
Julie Kraut – Keep the Car Running/Arcade Fire
Marc Landers – Gonna Make You Sweat/C + C Music Factory
Dana Rossi – Edge of Seventeen/Stevie Nicks
Lane Moore – Little Red Riding Hood/Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs
The Vinyl Frontier
Tickets are $10 online and at the door Buy tickets here
Thursday May 26th 2011 7:00 PM
At the dawn of the 21st century, renegade toy designers, bored with the G.I. Joe status quo, boldly remixed and reassembled the toys of their parent’s generation. Birthing a new format of toy and medium of artistic expression, these artists were the first to explore The Vinyl Frontier. A world where Art is Fun!
By exploring a landscape inhabited by a wide range of artists, their creations, and obsessive collectors, the documentary examines the hybrid objects’ artistic and commercial value, as well as the creative process of art-toy making. The Vinyl Frontier is a comprehensive look at a fresh and exciting art movement that anyone young at heart and imaginative can enjoy. (READ MORE.)
See “Knitting is for Pus****” for the last time (in NYC) and like never before… with a **SPECIAL BLACK LIGHT PRESENTATION!**
On Friday May 27th, 2011 Christopher Henry Gallery NYC will host a Closing Party for Celebrity Artist OLEK. Olek’s acclaimed installation “Knitting is for Pus****” has created a total sensation since it 1st opened back in September 2010. It traveled to SCOPE MIAMI, and was extended repeatedly due to pop…ular demand and endless press requests… next it will be highlighted in a traveling museum show called “40 Under 40” opening at The SMITHSONIAN Museum in 2012!
VIDEOROVER: Season II Curated by: Rachel Steinberg
May 27 – Dec 17, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, May 27, 7-9 PM
Screening begins at 8 PM
910 Grand St Brooklyn, NY
NURTUREart Non-Profit is pleased to present VIDEOROVER: Season II, the second installment of its semi-annual video series. VIDEOROVER: Season II is curated by Rachel Steinberg and features artists: Fatima Al Qadiri and Lyndsy Welgos, Cecilia Bonilla, Juan Pablo Echeverri, Derek Larson, Dana Levy, Pernille With Madsen, Colin Snapp, and JULIACKS.
VIDEOROVER seeks to present a wide range of works from artists locally and internationally who are all working to expand the perceptual limitations of video. This season’s selection aims to disorient viewers by removing an essential reality context, only to redeposit them into seemingly familiar settings.
Dana Levy, Fatima Al Qadiri and Lyndsy Welgos explore the pluralism of eastern and western conventions by looking at traditions through a contemporary perspective. Cecilia Bonilla examines our relationships to the seductive nature of commercial images of women through minimal manipulation, while Juan Pablo Echeverri shows us a self-projected fantasy of mass-produced femininity. Colin Snapp acts as a ‘journalist’ of sorts, documenting moments of real-time, but relieving the viewer of imposed intentions. Pernille With Madsen dizzies and disorients us with a vision of how to imagine architectural surroundings. Derek Larson’s playful experimentations extend through other worldly humor while JULIACKS’ narrative pulls back and forth between a character’s inner psyche and external world. (READ MORE.)
Come celebrate the end of another season at the Poetry Project! The Poets’ Potluck is an opportunity for New York City’s poetry community(ies) to come together for an evening of readings, performances, and delicious food. An array of writers from the Poetry Project series as well as other local reading series will read/perform their work. Any one interested in bringing a dish for the potluck will contribute to an amazing feast. If you’re interested in bringing food, please email Brett Price at fridaynightseriesp@gmail.com.
This series of paintings is inspired by the rich food culture of New Orleans and south Louisiana where I grew up. The plastic babies I depict are known as ‘King Cake Babies.’ They are placed inside King Cakes, a cinnamon filled pastry-like cake eaten during Mardi Gras season. Tradition has it that whoever gets the baby throws the next party. Growing up, we kids made a game of finding the baby in the cake. more…
WEDNESDAY APRIL 27 / 8PM
Rimbaud’s Illuminations
At last! John Ashbery’s translation of French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s final masterpiece before abandoning poetry at the age of 21, Illuminations(Norton, 2011) has been published. Ashbery’s rendering of all forty-four poems powerfully evokes the kaleidoscopic beauty of the original and creates “a vision of postdiluvian freshness” out of “the chaos of ice floes and the polar night.” This is a major literary event and we are going to celebrate it with poets and musicians Edwin Torres, Anne Tardos, Nicole Peyrafitte, Franklin Bruno, David Shapiro, Bree Brenton, Julie Patton, Madeline Gins, Richard Hell, Evi Jundt, Anna Williams andSharon Mesmer.