It is inevitable that the New Museum would launch its own branded edibles. Last week, I was fortunate to be invited to the preview of their freshly launched New Museum Cookie made by City Bakery’s owner Maury Rubin.  Not only is the Birdbath Cafe stocked up with deliciously baked goodies, it seems that the New Museum is taking a huge step into forward-thinking sustainable practices. Their environmentally conscious effort is evident in working with City Bakery’s acclaimed Maury Rubin with his Build a Green Bakery initiative, and Uhuru Furniture designers who “believes that each piece conceived, designed, and produced should add to some greater good for the world.” I had a chat with Maria Cristina Rueda from Uhuru, and she explained that their furniture is handmade in Red Hook with a huge awareness for the environment especially when they produce for special events. I was more than impressed by that statement since I produce events and understand how materials always get wasted. The trunk stools that we were sitting on were beautifully simple, humbly original, and most importantly minimally functional. At the end of our conversation we both agreed that we can only take realistic steps towards shifting into a “green” mindset, this is New York City after-all, and not the hippy West Coast.

Photos by Pauline Tran

Photo by Mikhail Iliatov

Next Tuesday, Sept. 21, I curated a one-night performance event to happen at the new multi-media culture space Culturefix, located close to the brim of the Lower East Side. The show entitled Happy Oasis is an interesting blend of Hi/Lo Fi instrumentals and electronics with live projections, featuring experimental noisician link (Thessia Machado), electronic composer Ezekiel Honig collaborating with visualist Joshue Ott (superDraw), and sound/visual artist Mikhail Iliatov. The percussionist Hyun Moraes opens the show with an intense shamanic beating of a taiko drum. I’m really curious to see performance artists Kristin Reger and Martha Moszczynski (part avant-garde, part punk) collaborating for the first time to do an entrancing act with attributes to Middle Eastern women. If you have an iPhone or iPad, please bring it for a real-time interactive audio/visual experience. Complete details at opalnest.com

Charlotte Ford (CHICKEN)

It’s an overwhelming week in the New York art world. And I guess the fashion world as well. In these circumstances, planning is crucial so that you’ll get the most out of the week. The map feature on Artcards is super useful, and it’s what we use here to navigate easily around town to see shows. This weekend though, Philly looks even more exciting with the Philadelphia Live Arts Fringe Festival happening all over the city. Founded in 1997 by experimental artists, the festival showcases a collective of over 188 shows, national and international, that include dance, sound, visual art, theater, and film. Until now, Philly Fringe has been an unfiltered festival, where new and established artists present their work free of a standardized selection process.  Program and festival details are here: http://livearts-fringe.org

2010 Live Arts Philly Fringe Festival
September 3rd to 18th

Check back for updates and reviews.

Lucinda Childs with music by Philip Glass and film by Sol LeWitt (Dance)

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Last weekend, downtown Atlanta (Georgia) kicked it off with urban grit and paint. Street walls came alive with art that was created for the Living Walls Conference, a grassroots project gathering street artists from all over the world. This Summer event, which is still in its beginnings, is like a carnival for artists and friends to come together and communicate through urban art (but also beer, pizza, and games). Unfortunately I couldn’t make it down there, but the photographer Jenna Duffy captured the essence of the scene.

Jesse

Gaia

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This past weekend was a special treat for us art lovers who did not have to be stuck in the city’s sweltering heat to see art.  The Wassaic Project’s Summer Festival – with an edge of hippy-folkness  – is much more than just a hippy fest. The founders Eve Biddle, Elan Bogarin and Bowie Zunino are all artists who are based in New York City. They understand how the art world works here and so this is somewhat of a reform to that system. Their mission is simple and straightforward: to revive this hamlet sleepy town with good art, and bring people together to have a good time for the sake of art. And all of the shows are free!  Here’s a photo recap of the event, more words to come after some sleep replenishment.

Wassaic Projects: wassaicproject.org
Thursday – Sunday 12pm – 6pm

A tall slight man carried a blank sign through the sea of seated people silencing them in his wake. Then Liz Harris, of the music project Grouper, trickled through the crowd and the sounds began cascading down from the cement balconies that comprise the University of Berkeley’s Art Museum. Grouper’s installation performance piece SLEEP is part two of four Friday night ‘Gatherings’ curated by David Wilson at the Berkeley Art Museum. In this performance Liz Harris uses tape-collage, live instruments and the cavernous architecture of the Berkeley Art Museum to create a ‘downward-pulling current, lulling with the hiss and resonating pulse of watery sound and light’.

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courtesy MoMAPS1

This Saturday’s Warm Up event at PS1 MoMA will be a good one. The line-up includes Animal Collective, Blondes, Prince Rama, Oneohtrix Point Never, CFCF, and Babe Rainbow. The set starts from 2PM to 9PM. See the full schedule here.