Posts Tagged ‘art’

On Point: Brainiac Rising! Sarah Lewis Co-Curates SITE for Sante Fe Biennial

As reported in Vogue Magazine

“I’ve always done too much,” Sarah Lewis says in a tone that falls somewhere between self-mockery and pride. Thirty years old and whiplash fit, with honors degrees from Harvard and Oxford under her belt and on the verge of a Ph.D. from Yale, she has two books nearing completion, and is co-curating the SITE Santa Fe biennial, the closely watched art show, which opens next month. Rocco Landesman, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, wants to create a special initiative for her at the NEA in Washington, D.C. She has become a young woman to watch. As her friend Agnes Gund, MoMA’s president emerita, said the other day, “You don’t know what she’ll end up doing—there are so many possibilities.”

Read the rest of the article about Lewis in the May 2010 issue of Vogue at the link above.
Read more about the Biennial here.

03

05 2010

On Point: Hottentot Venus Symposium @NYU

Venus 2010

March 27, 2010

Sarah (Saartjie) Baartman, also known as the “Hottentot Venus,” a South African woman who was placed on exhibit in England and France beginning in 1810 and has been described by her protagonists as animal-like and exotic will be the subject of Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot” an Interdisciplinary Symposium. The event, co-hosted by the Department of Photography & Imaging in the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with NYU’s Africana Studies and the Institute for African American Affairs, will take place at the Tisch School of the Arts at 721 Broadway (at Waverly Place) on Saturday, March 27, 2010.

721 Broadway, Riese Lounge
9:00 – check in
9:30 –Welcome: Deb Willis, Manthia Diawara
9:45 – Keynote: Elizabeth Alexander
10:15 –11:15: Sarah Baartman in Context
Presenters: Charmaine Nelson, Zine Magubane, and Carole Boyce Davies.
 Moderator: Cheryl Finley
11:45-12:45: Sarah Baartman’s Legacy in Art and Art History
Presenters: Lisa Gail Collins,
Cheryl Finley and Fo Wilson.
1:00 – 2:00: break, book signing

2:00-3:30: The “Hottentot Venus” in Art and Film
Performance: Holly Bass
Presenters: Renee Cox, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ada Pinkston and Carla Williams.
3:45-4:45: Iconic Women in the Twentieth Century
Poet: Linda Susan Jackson
Presenters: J. Yolande Daniels, Michaela Angela Davis, Terri Francis and Michael
 Harris.
Moderator: Carla Williams
5:00: film screening and book signing (to end)


20

03 2010

Art: Sofia’s Culturaversy

LOOSEWORLD X Sofia Maldonado Part 2 from LOOSEWORLD on Vimeo.

Visual Artist Sofia Maldonado was commissioned by the Times Square Alliance to create a mural on 42nd Street is creating a big  hoopla over her choice of artistic vision. Apparently, some feminist (both white and black) along with Black professional groups are not  in thrilled of her street style art depicting young Latina and Black Women in scantily style dresses which viewers are calling hoochie mama’s. Some passers byer fear her work is a throw back to the bygone days of the old Times Square when prostitutes and pimps roamed the neighborhood made it an undesirable place to visit. Despite all of the controversy Sofia stands behind her work as does the Time Square Alliance. I visited the mural a few days ago and while the style might be construed as suggestive to some, as a Black woman I didn’t find her work offensive. For me her work is full of colorful lively figures with a touch of the fantasy of female hip-hop performance we often see in hip-hop and NeoSoul music videos.

The mural is part of Times Square Alliance art projects, which commissioned Sofia. More on this culturaversy from FOXNEWS.

If you’re interested in voicing your opinion or just nosy and want to see what other people are saying, check out the Times Square Alliance blog.

15

03 2010

ART: Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits” Shimming Down

In the areas of fiber arts and performance art, one name reins supreme: Nick Cave. Not to be confused with the musician, Nick Cave, the fiber/performance artist creates “sound suits from found objects, including beads connected like tiny seeds of creativity, glass or plastic pieces strung together to form intricate patterns that suggest Brazilian or Caribbean carnival themes. These suits might also be layered with twigs and flowing hair, which from a distance looks like trees dancing in the woods, from some weird fairy tale.

This Cranbrook Design school graduate—who also serves as chair of the Fashion Design Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago—has created new artistic boundaries as he adapts old with new art techniques. With a unique mix of fibers and other materials, he has produced furniture, clothing and much more. This new relationship between contemporary art, crafts, and fashion was evident in the 2007 “Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting” exhibition mounted by the Museum of Art and Design.

Soundsuit: This funky style is made of a diverse collection of found objects.

But this movement of sorts almost didn’t happen.

Sometime in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the interest in knitting started to fade, followed closely by the dwindling number of yarns shops throughout New York City. Today, knitting has emerged as a viable fiber art form, with a different twist that leans towards free-form, stylized garments, or products that are a combination of materials. These materials feature a mix of fibers with varied textures, as well as found objects from nature, even buttons or beads.

Cave’s work has forced other fiber artists and artists in other disciplines to reexamine their own material references. Whether you have the experience of witnessing Cave’s suits in performances, or as immobile figures in a gallery, you can still experience the sound and visual dialogue his pieces provoke. His work speaks to viewers with a cacophony of sounds heard over and over again.

Nick Cave's "Soundsuits" at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City

Cave had previously danced with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. One day he began to pay attention to the cacophony of sounds that came form his costume, which was mostly made of twigs. As he moved his body, each twig bushed against another and produced barely audible but regular sounds. Similar sounds came from other dancers who were gyrating to the beat of accompanying drums.

He had found a muse who would inspire his new art form—himself.

His canvases of his own or other dancers’ bodies expanded to include skintight leotards, to loose fitting garments with deep hoods. His materials now include beads, bangles, and sequins. No objects are off-limits; nor any subject. He has pulled together references from the social and political issues of the day, using for example, his own state of blackness as a silhouette; and in a nod to the Rodney King trial, a piece that expresses the freedom—or lack thereof—of the black male body, this time tied with materials that look like rope. The most ornate work can resemble over-sized deities, similar to spiritual figures from the African Yoruba tradition, or the Brazilian Candomble.
Nick Cave is represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City.

more links to Nick Cave soundsuits.

15

03 2010

ART: Check out the Arts in Chinatown

Creating Spaces for the Arts in Chinatown from Asian American Arts Alliance on Vimeo.

This video was launched in February 2010 by The Asian American Arts Alliance to promote greater cultural awareness of the art happenings in New York City’s Chinatown community. The program is part of the Chinatown Arts Marketing Program, the video was shot and edited by David Hou.
Amy Chin, an Arts Management Consultant, who also serves on the Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Committee  is one of the many cultural ambassadors featured in this short video which leads you through an exciting glimpse into the artistic endeavors that makes Manhattan’s Chinatown a gem among many other Chinatowns in cities throughout the United States.
Chin, states that New York’s Chinatown has a living culture beyond storefronts. This Chinese community is booming with an influx of younger people, where as the Chinatowns of other cities tend to be populated with first immigrants or seniors.

08

03 2010

Zhang Huan: Neither Coming Nor Going

Zhang Huan’s second solo show at PaceWildenstein, features Rulai, a monumental Buddha and recent large-scale works on paper based on the 7thcentury Chinese prophecy book Tui Bei Tu. The exhibition follows the debut of his newly conceived Handel opera, now scheduled to tour China in 2010, as well as the publication of a new Phaidon monograph.

NEW YORK, November 24, 2009—Following the critically-acclaimed September premiere of Semele, a new production of George Frideric Handel’s opera directed and designed by Zhang Huan and presented to audiences at The National Opera of Belgium in Brussels (scheduled to tour China in 2010), the artist will be the subject of his second solo exhibition at PaceWildenstein.

Neither Coming Nor Going will be on view at 545 West 22nd Street, New York City, from December 11, 2009 through January 30, 2010. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, December 10th from 6-8 p.m. Representing the artist’s continuing investigation of humanity through tradition, historical associations, and personal experiences, Neither Coming Nor Going will feature a monumental ash Buddha, Rulai (2008-2009), measuring 18′ 1/2″ x 14′ 10″ x 10′ 11-1/2″,as well as a series of unique large-scale works on paper made in 2006-2008.

The compacted ash surface of Rulai, supported by an internal metal frame, is heavily embedded with miniature porcelain Buddha relics, copper offering dishes, miniature skulls and unburned joss sticks. The strikingly beautiful grisaille palette of the sculpture is sharply contrasted with blood red paper wrappers, clustered around the crown and face of the deity. Burning incense pours out from Buddha’s head, activating a traditionally static art form with performative aspects, one of the artist’s hallmarks.

Zhang Huan video of  burning Buddha’s

Using ink, paper handmade from the bark of Mulberry trees, and in some works feathers to build up the surface, Zhang Huan depicts animals and landscapes in the series of unique works on paper included in this exhibition. He references the celebrated 17th-century Chinese painter and calligrapher Bada Shanren as well as Tui Bei Tu, a seventh-century Tang Dynasty prophecy book which reappeared in second-hand book stores in China in the 1990s after being banned by the Communist party. Tui Bei Tu offered an alternative to traditional Eastern and Western systems and presented insight into China’s future, utilizing drawings and poems to prophesize a sequence of sixty events.

The art of Tui Bei Tu

Tags:

08

02 2010

KULTURE: Why China?

photo by m. washington

My recent trip to China was another benefit of my relationship with my partner Scott Barton, who was granted a fellowship, for an intensive 2-1/2 week program that focused on the culture, history and ritual practices of eating of the people of Hong Kong. Who lives for all things food, Scott is a PhD candidate in the Food Study program at New York University. For the past 25 years he has worked as a chef and restaurant consultant all over the United States and in several European cities.

Read the rest of this entry →

31

01 2010