upcoming events at hallwalls contemporary arts center, buffalo, ny;
other local listings; sundry filler material
Friday, April 30, 2010
No time for quote mining, obituaries, listings, banal film/record reviews because this week is ONLY about Artists&Models: STIMULUS, Hallwalls' fundraising art party that takes place tomorrow, Saturday, May 1, 9pm to 2am.
And here's no time to write a tome on A&M. If you want some info, check out:
Thanks to all three writers for their interest and enthusiasm and the News and AV for providing some much-appreciated cover-age.
What else can I tell you....we've rolled the dice and we'll see whether they land seven or eleven. I don't expect to see snake eyes because visual artists, as you all know, are some of the hardest working people in show biz and this year's crop of participants—many who have never participated in A&M before—seem both highly motivated and immensely stoked. Stoked enough that it's readily apparent. They are loving the space they are working in, the feel of it, the vibe from the other participants. At least this is what we perceive and they hustle around us getting their art ducks in order. Thanks to local business Ed Hogle for the great space to use, on the banks of the Scajaquada Creek, right at the location where the ships for the War of 1812 were launched. Thanks to Jim Celloto for all his help in getting the space ready.
We haven't seen the giant brain made from yoga mats yet or the 10 foot recyclable head. We haven't projected Dolphin Wank yet and while Bosworth has dropped off his beer projectors, they are still dry. Scott Bye is all over the place, half the time seeming to be helping others with their installations. Chris Hausbeck has been rocking the acetylene torch for a few days. Gary Sczerbaniewicz is back on the tunnel chain gang. Nancy Parisi has pimped out her photo booth. Jax Deluca has fallen iin love with a booth of her own. Aasta Deth has been laying carpet and furniture. Vince Mistretta has got picnic baskets and projections. Al Larsen seems pleased with his cul de sac. And we anxiously await the arrival of Kyle, Marc, and Alice's papier mache Buffalo which will be starring in a remake of Free Willy.
All of which tells you nothing really. The photos below tell you even less. The space will look entirely different from this by tonight and will be ready for you tomorrow when you may officially begin your summer of frivolity. Facebook says 419 confirmed guests which is a wholly erroneous number. Expect multitudes more than that.
So enjoy this short, ambiguous, uninformative photo array and we'll be back with the regular filler material next week.
Friday, April 23, 2010
If you can't be funny, be interesting. — Harold Ross
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. — George Bernard Shaw
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. — Harper Lee
The only paradise is paradise lost. — Marcel Proust
Friday Overture: I Couldn't Resist It, Why Should You?
NOTE BENE: Alright, a cheap ploy. A baby video. No one's ever posted one of those before. There's never going to be a shortage of baby videos on the web. Search the words "baby lemon" if you want a super cheap laugh, there's plenty of that parental torment out there. But this clip had, I thought, a touch more panache. I generally find our culture far too child-centric, to the point of fetishism at times, but I also find babies endlessly interesting. Probably because they're not beset by jealousies and fears and depressions and self-loathing—Us in an unaffected state. So the rapturous insanity of this clip kind of got to me. I'm also a sucker for time lapse, not to mention that it's a contraction of almost four hours of play.
OPENINGTONIGHT@ HALLWALLS: SAM VAN AKEN: I AM HERE TODAY... FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 8 TO 11PM ARTIST'S TALK @ 8PM
Sam Van Aken appears courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.
Opening Reception April 25 @ Olean Public Library (thru May 22) Laurie Tanner @ CG Jung Center May 7
John Pasquarella @ College Street Gallery op Fri, May 7, 5-10pm (May 30)
Continuing Elsewhere • ALBRIGHT KNOX• Fletcher Benton (July 5), The Dorothy and Herb Vogel Collection (May 9), Guillermo Cuitca (May 30), The Automatiste Revolution (May 30) Buffalo News •BIG ORBIT• installing •BUFFALO ARTS STUDIO• Dennis Maher, Kyle Butler (May 29) •BURCHFIELD PENNEY• Park School Students (Mar 28), Charles Cary Rumsey (May 30), Surreal Inclinations (July 11), Charles Burchfield: Heatwaves in a Swamp (May 23) • CARNEGIE ART CENTER• Jolene Beckman, Scan Lines (May 15) Artvoice Foran •CASTELLANI ART MUSEUM• Felice Koenig (May 23), Surrealism and the Museum of Dreams (May 30), BSA Catalog Exhibition (Sept 5) • CEPA GALLERY• Sally Rebl, Edgar Heap of Birds, Biff Henrich (May 29) •HALLWALLS• Sam Van Aken opens April 23, 8-11pm • SQUEAKY WHEEL • Signal Scavengers (May 8) •UB ANDERSON• Paul Jenkins (Aug 22), Annette Cravens • UB ART GALLERY• Alberto Rey & Precious Cargo (both May 15), Marc Tomko, Jason Seeley, Timothy Scaffidi, Ellen Rogers, Shasti O'Leary Soudant, Carolyn Kaser, Carrie Firman, Caitlin Cass, Heather Brand, Katrina Boemig, Jonathan Barcan, Alice Alexandrescu (May 15) • Greg Kuppenger, Victoria Ciostek, John Merlino, Sharon Kalstek @ Buffalo Big Print (Apr 17) • Gerald Mead @ Nichols (May 1) • David Pierro, Candace Keegan, Michael Trampert, Ross Chirico, Michael Mulley, Chris McGee, William Herod, Chris Hausbeck @ Queen City Gallery (Apr 30) • Julian Montague @ B&W (NYC) thru May 28 • Greg Kuppenger, Viktoria Ciostek, Gene Witkowski, John Merlino, Sharon Kalstek @ Buffalo Big Print (Apr 17) • Andre Fradet @ Studio Hart (May 5) • Geoffrey Krawczyk @ Artspace (May 4) • Adele Cohen @ WNYBAC (May 15)
"What is known is that the nearly all-white G.O.P. is so traumatized by race it has now morphed into a bizarre paragon of both liberal and conservative racial political correctness. For irrefutable proof, look no further than the peculiar case of its chairman, Steele, whose reckless spending and incompetence would cost him his job at any other professional organization, let alone a political operation during an election year. Steele has job security only because he is the sole black man in a white party hierarchy." NY Times Rich
"In his customary jeans and baseball cap, he sits among his newly installed work at Quint Contemporary Art in La Jolla, not exactly smug but clearly satisfied. This is his first commercial gallery show in California in 30 years..." LA Times Ollman
"Although I’ve avoided writing about her, I’ve made passing negative references to her work over the years, and her fans, who praise the ways she depicts the struggles of women and children, have noticed. I’ve been accused of being part of a "circle jerk" anti-Dumas cabal" artnet Saltz
"Many strip clubs in the 50 states of America prohibit touching the dancers. At the MoMA exhibition, one is compelled, in running the gauntlet between two naked people, to touch them." artnet Finch
"It was an important education for me. In order for art to be an occupation, you have be in the world. You have to take responsibility for the viewer and address ideas about space, lights, history, all the contingencies. It wasn't just the pleasure of making art as a kid and showing one's parent." LA Times Emerling
"Well, Orson, he seems to have gotten into the cans of Dutch Boy Paint and is spreading the stuff around the studio." "That's grounds for disqualification, Beaumont, Mr. Pollock, if you don't zip up your fly, our guards will escort you from the studio." artnet Finch
"Nationalism, regionalism and tribalism are all on the rise. Societies are splitting even as they share more common goods and attributes than ever before. Culture is increasingly an instrument to divide and differentiate communities. And the leveling pressures of globalization have at the same time provided more and more people with the technological resources to decide for themselves, culturally speaking, who they are and how they choose to be known, seen, distinguished from others." NY Times KImmelman
"Ms. Allen was one of the first in her profession to give sound as much importance as images. She was also among the first to command a percentage of a movie’s profits." NY Times obit
"Ms. Rodgers first came to prominence with poems that were strident, militant and experimental — free-verse declarations of collective black anger and a black woman’s selfhood, written in street language replete with profanities and vernacular spellings." NY Times obit
For Your Netflix Queue... (1966, dir. John Frankenheimer) It's the heartwarming tale of a middle-aged banker who is dissatisfied with his life. I know, boo-fucking-hoo. It's a little tough to work up much sympathy for protagonist Rock Hudson and you may by the end of the film think, "Fuck, serves him right!" and I won't blame you. The central theme of this moral parable is a bit blunt, by which I mean obvious, but that doesn't detract from the skillful melange of sci-fi, melodrama, Twilight Zone and noir stylings. Not to mention that a movie in which a character gains a new identity (a serving of "seconds") and that identity is of a famous painter is somewhat anachronistic. It's hard to imagine the role of "painter" being set up these days as a laudable and admirable profession/identity of choice. Still, a film with a perverse sense of humor. Worth watching.
Something I listened to this week... (2000) D'ANGELO • VOODOO I was listening to an interview with a couple of the young friends musicians from the band Phoenix and they really perked up at one point in discussing this album and how obsessed with it they were for a time. Which was more than ample reason to check out this album that slipped by me. It's a slow jam makeout record to be sure, but it's a slinky, trippy ride with a high RElistenability factor. Great voice, great grooves, lots of terrific fills of sound. Remains on my iPod and may be there for a while. If you're looking for what the topless cover art advertises, it certainly there, but they could have released this without a cover as a flexi-disc that you cut out of the back cover of a cereal box and it would still sound great.
(1973) LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM & STEVIE NICKS • BUCKINGHAM NICKS Even more of a topless surprise, I was somewhat taken aback at how terrific this album was. Growing up in the 70s it was scientifically proven that for at least 18 months, it was impossible to live 15 minutes without hearing Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. I've long gotten over the deep loathing such übersaturation creates and have come back to gladl concede to the greatness of that record. But it still never provoked me to listen to much mroe FM, certainly not early solo performances. And, being a curator, maybe my problem was visual. Just an awful album cover that totally betrays the wild strengths of this record, Nicks' voice and Buckingham's guitar, recorded when they were still together and at their youthful apex.
The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure. — Herman Hesse
Friday, April 16, 2010
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific. — Lily Tomlin
It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself. — Charles Baudelaire
The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing. — Henry Miller
Nothing exists but atoms and empty space. Everything else is opinion. — Democritus
Friday Overture: Everything Is Everything
NOTA BENE: A single channel version of an installation piece originally made by Koki Tanaka for the 2006 Tapei Biennial.
CONTINUING thru April 16 @ Hallwalls Gallery hours: Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 11am to 2pm
@ Hallwalls Wed, Apr 21, 8pm WILLIAM PARKER TRANCE QUARTET
NEXT HALLWALLS OPENING: SAM VAN AKEN: I AM HERE TODAY... SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 8 TO 11PM ARTIST'S TALK @ 8PM
“i am here today …” are the words Charlie Chaplin inscribed on the inside of his iconic, battered derby.
This ambiguous phrase, implying transition (possibly to be followed by the words “gone tomorrow”), also situates the speaker in place, in the present moment. It is an articulation of both transience and permanence, of emphatic reality and ever-mutable futures. In early Hollywood, where the actor’s own artifice is played out among the obvious falseness of crude stages and perfunctory props, this understated iteration of self is a reference point and lifeline within the layers of faux reality. When viewed in reality, any film set betrays its own absurd ruse, typically appearing utterly unconvincing in person. It is only through the filter of the film, the lens, and the projected image that the artifice vanishes and the narrative appears as convincing.
Sam Van Aken’s project for Hallwalls entitled i am here today… takes place in the perceptual gaps between artifice and authentic experience. As in the deception of the eye in tromp l’oeil, in Van Aken’s installation, things are not what they at first appear to be. Drawing on Orson Welles’ 1939 War of the Worlds radio hoax Van Aken’s intends to construct a space where our senses deceive us and what we perceive is not necessarily the truth. Van Aken brings forth the question of whether there is an element of artifice so convincing that it becomes mistaken for reality.
Cutting through the main gallery is a 32’ steel constructed tower laying on its side. The tower is a “deception of the eye” that resulted during Orson Wells’ 1939 radio hoax. Shortly after Welles’ radio broadcast began, the residents of the town of Grover’s Mills, N.J. descended on the crossroads at the center of town where it was reported (in the radio play) that aliens had landed. Standing in the yard of the Grover family property, some of the residents bearing firearms mistook this tower (originally a windmill, then converted into a standpipe) for the alien ships as they were described in the broadcast. Accordingly, they opened fired on the water tower.
In the corner of the gallery, visitors will find a small sound stage. On a raised platform, sound props sit among stage lights, microphones, power cords, and cables. Broadcast by an FM transmitter and antenna, a looping radio hoax written by the artist and performed by actors will be playing. Inaudible to the viewer except within a sound booth positioned in the back of the gallery, the hoax becomes another layer of perceptual deception.
Sam Van Aken appears courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.
Opening Elsewhere • Adele Cohen @ WNYBAC op Fri, April 16, 6-10pm (May 15 • Tullis Johnson tours Heat Waves in a Swamp @ the BPAC Sun, April 18, 2:30pm • Buffalo Society of Artists 114th Catalog Exhibition @ The Catellani op Sun, April 18, 2-4pm
Bradley Butler MFA Show op @ Bevier Gallery, RIT, Fri, Apr 16, 5-7pm (thru May 5) Bradley Butler Website
Five Panel Discussions On Estate Planning @ BPAC Earth Warming Party & Open House
Opening Reception April 25 @ Olean Public Library (thru May 22)
Zoetrope @ UB Art Galleries thru May 15 incl. Mark Tomko, Jason Seeley, Timothy Scaffidi, Ellen Rogers, Shasti O'Leary Soudant, Carolyn Kaser, Carrie C. Firman, Caitlin Cass, Heather Brand, katrina Boemig, Jonathan Barcan, Alice Alexandrescu CALL FOR WORK: 6X6X2010: DEADLINE MAY 2 Rochester Contemporary
Continuing Elsewhere • ALBRIGHT KNOX• Fletcher Benton (July 5), The Dorothy and Herb Vogel Collection (May 9), Guillermo Cuitca (May 30), The Automatiste Revolution (May 30) Buffalo News •BIG ORBIT• Frederick Wright-Jones (Apr 17) Buffalo News •BUFFALO ARTS STUDIO• installing •BURCHFIELD PENNEY• Park School Students (Mar 28), Charles Cary Rumsey (May 30), Surreal Inclinations (July 11), Charles Burchfield: Heatwaves in a Swamp (May 23) • CARNEGIE ART CENTER• Jolene Beckman, Scan Lines (May 15) •CASTELLANI ART MUSEUM• Felice Koenig (May 23), Surrealism and the Museum of Dreams (May 30) • CEPA GALLERY• Sally Rebl, Edgar Heap of Birds, Biff Henrich (May 29) •HALLWALLS• Sam Van Aken opens April 23, 8-11pm • SQUEAKY WHEEL • Signal Scavengers (May 8) •UB ANDERSON• Paul Jenkins (Aug 22), Annette Cravens • UB ART GALLERY• Alberto Rey & Precious Cargo (both May 15) • Greg Kuppenger, Victoria Ciostek, John Merlino, Sharon Kalstek @ Buffalo Big Print (Apr 17) • Gerald Mead @ Nichols (May 1) • Willian DuBois @ Nina Freudenheim (Apr 14) Buffalo News • David Pierro, Candace Keegan, Michael Trampert, Ross Chirico, Michael Mulley, Chris McGee, William Herod, Chris Hausbeck @ Queen City Gallery (Apr 30) • Julian Montague @ B&W (NYC) thru May 28 • Greg Kuppenger, Viktoria Ciostek, Gene Witkowski, John Merlino, Sharon Kalstek @ Buffalo Big Print (Apr 17) • Andre Fradet @ Studio Hart (May 5) • Geoffrey Krawczyk @ Artspace (May 4)
"No top player in the Bush administration has taken responsibility for his or her role in selling faulty intelligence products without exerting proper due diligence. There have been few unequivocal mea culpas from those who failed in their oversight roles during the housing bubble either — whether Greenspan, the Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson or Timothy Geithner in his pre-Obama incarnation leading the New York Fed." NY Times Rich
"The thing is, both Banksy and Mr. Guetta are pretty unreliable narrators. The immediate scuttlebutt was that Mr. Guetta either didn’t exist at all, that he was in cahoots with Banksy or that he was Banksy himself. Even aficionados of the scene were unsure what to think." NY Times Ryzik
"The characteristics of a Jack Kirby illustration are easily distinguished: extravagantly costumed heroes and nefarious villains locked in titanic struggles; foreshortened fists, feet and muscles that seem to pop off the page; intricately detailed settings meant to conjure the ancient past or suggest the distant future." NY Times Itzkoff
"Government-financed brigades of graffiti artists and muralists are blanketing this city’s walls with politicized images, ranging from crude, graffiti-tagged slogans to bold, colorful works of graphic art." NY Times Romero
"Mr. Koons intends to paint the M3 GT2 with a series of colorful streaks, or rods, suggesting the blur of speed. It is the sort of imagery that appears in sci-fi films to suggest that a spacecraft has gone into hyperdrive." NY Times Paxton
"...the Doo Nanny offers both a burning effigy and an exercise in creative camping. Mr. Anthony has thoughtfully provided a tepee, an outdoor kitchen, a solar-powered shower, outhouses and a wood-fueled hot tub, all built from and decorated with the sort of handmade trash-into-art pieces — ethereal chandeliers pieced together with cow bones and twigs gnawed by beavers — that are his specialty." NY Times Green
"George Nissen, 16, who was a member of the gymnastics and diving teams at his high school, was soon tinkering in his parents’ garage, strapping together a rectangular steel frame and a canvas sheet. Even though it was not quite as springy as he had hoped, he called it a bouncing rig. That was in 1930." NY Times obit
It is only by following your deepest instinct that you can lead a rich life and if you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, then your life will be safe, expedient, and thin. — Katharine Butler Hathaway
