“…it really does seem like an opportune moment for artists and artist-centric organizations to seize the initiative and create new, autonomous approaches to the production, display, discussion, and dissemination of art.”
—Matthew Higgs, ArtForum’s end of year wrap-up, Dec. 2006.
If you live in New York, it’s worth a trip to Our Savior’s Atonement for their fine Music at Our Savior’s Atonement concert series. Curator James Noyes brings a top notch selection of performers, primarily in acoustic mode to the beautiful stone chuch hall in Washington Heights. Combine it with a trip to the Cloisters or to Inwood Hill Park for a great uptown Sunday. PF
Michelle Makarski
performs unaccompanied works for solo violin by
Tartini, Crockett & Hartke
December 10 at 3PM
“Miss Makarski seemed herself to become the singer, uttering the lines almost as if she were composing them.”
Andrew Porter, The New Yorker
Recognized as one of the most important living violinists by BBC Music Magazine, Washington Heights resident Michelle Makarski displays her outstanding artistic versatility in the ‘nabe’. Her program includes solo violin selections from her 2006 ECM release to be sung on the water featuring three Italian baroque sonatas by Giuseppe Tartini and recently written American works by Stephen Hartke and Donald Crockett, pieces influenced by Irish “keening” and rock.
With the influx of retail giants into Soho and the nearly complete exodus of galleries and museums (the former Gugg is now Prada, and the New Museum has relocated), it’s a wonder there’s anything to do down there besides shop and eat, if you can afford either option. But I discovered happenings are still happening below Houston Street. Last week, In the Sky by Brooklynite twins Leesa and Nicole Abahuni opened at Location One, and the space was packed with a diverse crowd of all ages for the experience of walking though an installation of 12,000 strands of ball chain, and the special dance by Glen Rumsey and performance of a musical composition by Elliott Sharp with percussionists Danny Tunick and Christine Bard.
Founded in 1997 by Claire Montgomery, Location One has an involved and lengthy mission statement/manifesto, and my personal favorite item is Number 5, which begins with “Location One is creating a new environment for contemporary art, one that is rich in interdisciplinary context.” Regardless of all the words devoted to what they say they are trying to do, what they are inarguably successful in doing is supporting, encouraging and disseminating the work of new artists in new media, and in engaging the public.
A few days later, just around the corner at The Drawing Center (still in Soho for the time being, where we wish they’d stay put), artist Eleanore Mikus drew a large crowd (no pun intended) for a lecture on her show From Shell to Skin, discussing the methods, materials, influences, and activities of her long career. (A full review of that show is here.)
Worth the visit, there are still a handful of galleries to be found downtown, like Ronald Feldman, June Kelly (okay, I’m not neutral about this one), Nancy Hoffman, and Artists Space, to name a few. And a secret I’ll share with you: When you need to refuel or to get away from the throngs on the streets, duck into Palacinka on Grand St near 6th Ave for great food and atmo at prices atypical for Soho.
Q: Why did Deitch Projects choose what looks like Girls (and Guys) Gone Wild as their Art Parade 2007 ad in December’s Art Forum?
A: To encourage life drawing entries this year.
Okay folks, a little shameless self-promotion for my solo exhibition Drawing Breath, opening December 15th, 6-8pm at June Kelly Gallery in Soho, 591 Broadway between Houston and Prince Streets, 3rd Floor. For more info and images, see June Kelly Gallery or skypape.com. Exhibition runs until January 16, 2007. Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6pm. Gallery Tel: 212-226-1660
[image below: The Speed of Life, 77-1/2"h x 42-1/4"w, ink and cut paper, 2006 ©Sky Pape]
I received an email concerning an opening in Bolivia from photographer Evan Abramson. His web site features great photographs of a three-year effort in the Andes that highlights dichotomies of present-past, communist-capitalist, pop-tradition.
From Abramson:
I have dedicated the last three years of my life to creating a historically present tense, visual narrative of the lives and experiences of Andean farmers. This work has guided me to some of the highest and farthest settlements of humans in Bolivia today.
The intention of this photography is not merely to document the lives and cultures of a people relatively unknown by the majority of its viewers. The importance of the work is its search for forms of understanding: compiling a language of signs and symbols that penetrate still moments until making them sound.
What these images gathered together express is part of a 500-year long, many-faced cultural process of integration and adaptation of the foreign while continuously looking ahead into the indigenous, ancestral past.
They stand alone as testaments of a history rapidly changing in resurgence of itself.
Today is World AIDS day, 2006. [below via: www.thebody.com/visualaids]
World AIDS Day / Day With(out) Art
There are many events taking place today, December 1, 2006, in recognition of World AIDS Day and Day With(out) Art – An International Day of Action and Mourning in Response to the AIDS Crisis. Below is a list of a few of those events.
For more information on Day With(out) Art History and things you can do to make a change, visit http://thebody.com/visualaids/dwa/dwa2006.html
For the most current event and detail information visit the Visual AIDS blog at http://newsgrist.typepad.com/visualaids
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/visualaids/2006/11/visual_aids_pos.html
http://thebody.com/visualaids/current/postcards2006.html
526 West 26th Street #510
New York, NY 10001
212.627.9855
info@visualAIDS.org
www.visualAIDS.org