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The Autumnal Equinox and the Uni Project

by Gabriella Radujko on September 29th, 2012

photography © courtesy Sam Davol

Pop-ups–boutique, market or museum have entered the psyche of hip New Yorkers, but if you are really lucky, you will have experienced the pop-up library known as the Uni Project.

Part-library, part-performance space, the Uni Project, a portable library kiosk with curated cubes, popped up on a stretch of waterfront at the Gantry State Park in Long Island City, Queens on the first day of fall. The blustery weather wrestled with the portable bookshelves and seats, but passersby, especially the short, cute variety with parents hovering close by, intuitively browsed, read and celebrated books, played games and explored portable worm bins for indoor composting. Continue Reading More »

Kinematic Thursdays: Behind the Sounds

by Charlie Schroder on July 2nd, 2012

Piet-Jan van Rossum with Paul Clipson (Photos by Louie Metzner)

Subtwine – Entwine’s speakeasy-like downstairs space that has hosted musical-artists-in-residence such as Toucan (as profiled in the New York Times), video art exhibitions curated by CoWorkers Projects— for a limited time is home to the West Village’s only ongoing experimental sound art event, KINEMATIC Thursdays. Presented by Yulia Topchiy of CoWorker Projects, Kinematic Thursdays is curated by Helen Homan Wu of Opalnest. This is such a unique series of events blending video art, experimental music and sound art that I asked Helen for a bit of the backstory.

Noveller

Heike Baranowsky 'Monfahrt' (courtesy of Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin)

Helen founded Opalnest to provide exposure for artists — artists who work with time-based media — that do not necessarily fit into the typical art gallery structure here in the U.S.  She explains that in European cities like Berlin, interdisciplinary contemporary art such as sound art is a robust, thriving genre regularly reviewed and written about by theorists in the same manner of the traditional fine art disciplines of painting or sculpture. Continue Reading More »

IN PROTEST at Berkeley Art Museum

by Aaron Harbour on May 8th, 2012

I am excited about the potential of In Protest, an event organized in tandem by the Kadist Art Foundation and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, to be held Wednesday, May 9th at 7pm.

Artists have been asked to design posters with a specific or abstract political message to be given away at this one night event. The list of artists includes many whom I instantly associate with politically charged practices such as Rigo 23, Martha Rosler, and Natasha Wheat and many whose posters may help recast their interests in a more political light.

The artists are Zarouhie Abdalian, John Baldessari, Amy Balkin, Dodie Bellamy, Charlie Dubbe, Amy Franceschini, Doug Hall, Kevin Killian, Paul Kos, Tony Labat, Shaun O’Dell, Rigo 23, Piero Golia, Jordan Kantor, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Mungo Thomson and Natasha Wheat.

Questions of art praxes’ political potentials and limitations are constantly swirling, all the more so in these highly charged times of active protest movements. The world has yet to come to terms with the revolutions recently transpired or those still afoot. And the future is less than settled in nations whose ‘completed’ revolts in the Arab Spring have left them in a terrible and dangerous state of flux. A military government is still in control of Egypt and in advance of elections, vying political factions are falling victim to massacres such as the one in Cairo on May 2nd.  Closer to home (and much tamer despite the press’ over emphasis on its outlying criminal element) we have our local Occupy, revitalized in its May Day general strike. In each of these protests and in the more everyday ones (usually in the grand tradition of labor struggles, but also against abortion and pro or against various political personalities and parties) the arts play a major role, both as means of message production (signs, banners, et al.) and as a foothold for giving the myriad people some cohesiveness (ex. the various strains of music performed and DJed).

During a March 31st talk at the Kadist curator Nato Thompson, whose excellent exhibition Living as Form is about to finish its satellite run in SF, discussed various ways in which art could engage with a wider audience, purpose and potential, noting (I’m paraphrasing) the worst thing we could do is commission a bunch of posters. But is such a curatorial proposal so untenable? In the introduction to Dorathea von Hantlemann’s excellent How to Do Things With Art (2010), she describes her theme as, “How does art become politically or socially significant and what preconditions must be fulfilled in order to enable artworks to attain such significance?”

In Protest will raise these questions anew, confronting Thompson’s challenge and interrogating Hantlemann’s question. Each artist will address both the specific audience in attendance and the vitality of their medium (the poster and art as a whole) in the context of the museum and the wider political conversation. And we,  the viewers,  will walk away with works of art.

Wynwood’s Second Saturday Art Walk: October Edition

by Brinson Renda on October 12th, 2011


The weather during this month’s Wynwood gallery walk ’s was a total drag, but the openings made up for it all. If you couldn’t make it or aren’t in the Miami area here’s a quick re-cap!

101/exhibit

Continue Reading More »

Transmission Arts: Artists and Airwaves Book Celebration at Issue Project Room

by Maria Papadomanolaki on October 9th, 2011


On Tuesday, October 18th, free103point9, PAJ Publications, Issue Project Room and Electronic Music Foundation will celebrate the publication of Transmission Arts: Artists and Airwaves by Galen Joseph-Hunter with Penny Duff, and Maria Papadomanolaki (PAJ Publications: 2011). This event will feature performances from Todd Merrell, Kabir Carter, Terry Nauheim, Lázaro Valiente, Joel Chadabe/Milica Paranosic. Performances begin at 7 p.m.

PROGRAM INFO:
Transmission Arts: Artists & Airwaves Brooklyn Book Celebration
(http://free103point9.org/events/3657)
Oct. 18, 2011: 7 p.m., free
Issue Project Room
At the Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215 Continue Reading More »

John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit” Invites Noise to the Armory

by Gabriella Radujko on February 26th, 2011

Photos: Gabriella Radujko

In an extraordinary performance of “Inuksuit” at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, composer John Luther Adams turned noise into “site-determined” music.  Describing the Armory as an environment like no other, Adams accepted the challenge of scaling a performance, which originally premiered outdoors at the Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies, for the “pristine emptiness” of the 55,000 square foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Continue Reading More »

Major Jackson’s Holding Company

by Gabriella Radujko on February 15th, 2011

10 lines on 10th Street, February 10th

© Erin Patrice O'Brien

Poet Major Jackson read before an adoring, largely student crowd at
NYU’s Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House on West 10th Street, but
more importantly, shared insights about the joy of writing something
aesthetic and finding the “music underneath [a] poem”, which he
suggests, “makes the themes of the poem incidental”.  Very important,
really, because Mr. Jackson gave poets in the audience what poets in
an audience always want—tools, clues, and insights about how to write
corporeally and spiritually about a world we alternately live in and
transcend. Continue Reading More »