November 2006 Archives
Dark (Davis), 2006
Acrylic and paper on digital print
24 × 27 inches
I really love James Hyde's work. You really can't tell, without standing up close to this and looking at it from different angles, which part is painted and which is part of the digital print. The "(Davis)" in the title refers to Stuart Davis.
This is one of a couple of works by James Hyde in The Thaw, the second exhibition at Lital Mehr's new gallery on 18th Street.
Art benefits are a great way to do good, add to your collection, and discover new artists. We have met a lot of artists by first buying a work of theirs at a benefit. Good things happening over the next few weeks:
White Box Toy Box Holiday Benefit Auction: Thursday, November 30, 6 - 9 pm
We've found a lot of great work at their benefits. Unfortunately their site is down at the moment. Joy Garnett has some more details.
Visual AIDS Postcards From The Edge Benefit 2006
Friday, December 1 from 6-8PM:
Preview Party on World AIDS Day
Sneak peek only -- NO POSTCARD SALES. $75 admission includes one raffle ticket. One Lucky Winner will select any postcard that evening! Additional Raffle Tickets $25. Other prizes donated by Twin Palm Press, Steidldangin, PowerHouse Books, Printed Matter and more. Participating artists attend free.
SILENT AUCTION of specially selected artworks by Jenny Holtzer, Barton Lidice Benes, Richard Renaldi and others.
Saturday, December 2 from 12-6 PM:
Benefit Sale (Opens)
Over 1000 original postcard-size works of art! ONLY $75 EACH. Buy four cards and get one free. First come, first served. CASH and CHECK ONLY -- sorry no credit cards. $5 Suggested Admission.
Sunday, December 3 from 12-4 PM:
Benefit Sale (Last chance)
Less crowds, but still plenty of great art! Still only $75 EACH same as above.
Hosted by:
Sikkema, Jenkins & Co.
530 West 22nd Street, NYC
d.u.m.b.o. arts center (dac) Winter Auction 2006
Preview reception: Monday, November 27, 6 9 pm
Preview and silent bidding: November 27 - December 2, 10 am - 6 pm
Live Auction: Saturday, December 2 at 8 pm
Auctioneer: Christopher Gaillard of Sotheby's
Pre-auction reception: 6 8 pm
Silent Auction closes after Live Auction
Location:
d.u.m.b.o. arts center (dac) Gallery
30 Washington Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
mail@dumboartscenter.org
View works online: from November 27 at www.dumboartscenter.org
All major credit cards accepted.
vertextList benefit: Thursday, Dec 14th, 2006 7-10pm
This vitally important gallery focused on new media is having a benefit to raise money to help pay their rent over the next year. You can still attend the party without buying raffle ticket. Raffle tickets are $200 ($150 for participating artists). All tickets guarantee a piece of art.
Annual Holiday Benefit Party
Thursday, December 14th, 9pm
With live music by Kate Diamond
Proceeds to benefit Habitat for Humanity
Artists donating work to be raffled: Lee Bakofsky, Jud Bergeron, Terry Ekasala, Matt Hansel, Pamela Henderson, Jordin Isip, Julia Marchand, Jennifer Perlmutter, Martha Rich, Paul Richard, Jean-Pierre Roy, Nina Savill, Amy Shawley, Jill Simonsen, Aaron Smith, Wendy Weston, Eric White and more artists TBA!
Raffle tickets are $10 each. Even if you can't come to the party, you can still purchase raffle tickets. Images and details will be posted online soon.
The Second Annual WAGMAG Benefit Art Show
Admission is free, Tickets for artwork drawing are $150
Tickets can be purchased at the gallery or online
Advanced Viewing: December 2nd-December 16th
Reception and Raffle of work Saturday Dec. 16th, 7-9
Viewing hours: Fri-Sun 1-6
WAGMAG (Williamsburg and Greenpoint Monthly Art Guide) is pleased to present it's Second annual benefit to support it's mission to promote the over fifty galleries throughout Williamsburg and Greenpoint, to enlighten gallery goers as to art events and give recognition to the exhibiting artists through current listings and reviews.
All galleries included in WAGMAG are have been invited to participate in this exhibition, as well as some prominent artists from the neighborhood. The resulting show will not only generate funding for WAGMAG but also reflect the spirit and personality of the Williamsburg art community.
Works will be on view from Saturday, December 2nd through Saturday, December 16th. Tickets available during viewing and on the benefit evening. A ticket for $150 guarantees a work of art, a drawing decides the order in which ticketholders select an artwork. Benefit evening, Saturday December 16th 7-9, drawing begins at 8:00.
Last night, James and I had dinner with friends at the new Klee Brasserie on Ninth Avenue. It was the first time we had spent dinner with the two of them, and they were up for the adventure of dining at a place that had been open less than a week. It's in the old Magnifico space, but you would be unlikely to recognize it. It has been fully rearranged, with a long bar on one side. I was told that the bar there at the moment isn't the final version.
The chef, Daniel Angerer, is Austrian, but I would describe the food as creative New York comfort food. There are elements of Austrian/Germanic cooking, plus some Italian and other influences. Not much in the way of Asian highlights.
I like the space. It's comfortable, and the tables aren't so close together that they have to pull one table out to seat people. I refuse to eat at places that charge $20+ for entrees and then do that to the customers. The sound level is good, which is another plus in its favor. The place was pretty full, and we could hear each other at a largish table for 4 with no problem.
The wine list is still being worked on, but the one we ordered from had a number of good deals on Austrian wines. We had a Grüner Veltiner and a Blaufränkisch both under $40. There are a number of wines available by the glass or the carafe.
The food was very good, with perhaps a little more excitement in the appetizer course. I have no idea why that is often the case, but I see it a lot when we eat out. Among the group, we had
- Shrimp cocktail with champagne mustard rather than cocktail sauce
- Chicken soup that arrived with the broth in a French press
- Char tartare with lime and golden beet "caviar," and
- Alsatian Tarte Flambée, but was described as "Alsatian thin crust pizza." It was made with crème fraîche, lardons, and Vidalia onions. I'm a big fan of the dish, and it was one of the best versions I have ever had. I think the next time I go, we might split it between a couple of people as an appetizer, as it was decently sized.
For main courses, we had
- Black Hog pork chop with roasted red cabbage, apples, Calvados and mustard relish
- Duckling (Long Island), slow roasted Jersey Plums, quinoa, klee honey (two of us)
- Halibut (Novia Scotia), pine nut crusted, Brussel sprouts, basil and lemongrass broth
All were very good, but I think the (perfectly cooked) duckling was a little under-seasoned. I never ask for salt in a restaurant, but this time I did. I quickly and courteously received a little dish of excellent sea salt.
The service (which was very pleasant) is still working out some kinks, as is to be expected on what I think was the first night with a significant crowd. For dessert, we had a free assortment of excellent little cookies on the house. They were yummy, but I suspect the kitchen might have been a little overwhelmed at that point and was giving out dessert samplers rather than making individual desserts. Given the chef's Austrian background, I expect that will change pretty quickly.
Prices ranged from $8-14 for appetizers and $18-27 for entrees. For comparison, that's around the price range of Red Cat, and slightly more than Trestle on Tenth.
There are rotating specials each day, such as Macaroni and Cheese with Maine lobster and four cheeses on Fridays, and Wiener schnitzel on Saturdays.
I'm very happy to have this in the neighborhood, and expect to visit on a regular basis. I'll probably do an update after they've had some time to settle in, and we've had a chance to try out more of the menu.
Klee Brasserie
200 Ninth Ave. (between 22nd and 23rd)
212-633-8033
Related links:
Since I stared having gallery ads on ArtCal, I've tried to be rather picky about what other ads are on the site. Given that my ads cost a fraction of those on Artnet, I was surprised, when looking at the magazine page today, to see an animated Acura ad at the top. Here is a (non-animated) screen grab.
I spotted this at 23rd and Ninth Avenue last night. James and I were walking with Slava Mogutin following the Bjarne Melgaard "after dinner" with the Leo Koenig gang. He told us that he once saw a poster in Atlantic City offering a reward of $50 for a missing person.
untitled (pirate), 2006, #2 and colored pencil
untitled (fleece), 2006, #2 and colored pencil studies
I liked the drawings and sculpture/installation work I saw by David Lukowski last weekend at the open studios. Check out his website for more images.
[images from his website]
Emily Noelle Lambert, untitled, 2006
ink, collage, pencil, thread, drawing and collage
72 × 52 inches
We're fans already, but I have to say Emily's work really stood out at the Hunter MFA open studios last weekend. I love the ambition of the new large acrylic paintings, as well as the new direction represented by this mix of drawing, collage and sculpture pictured above.
Related:
- More Emily images on Flickr
- Artist page at Thomas Robertello
- Artist page at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
I can't stand how many times I see him described as moderate or reasonable. He is very right-wing. The latest reminder? He says he is a "federalist" when it comes to abortion -- let the states decide -- but he votes for federal laws against abortion. Now he also says he supports a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade. Does that sound like someone we trust to be President?
Links:
We attended the preview tonight of the NY Art Book Fair and had a great time. I nearly ran out of money as I ran around buying books. It runs through Sunday and is free for the rest of the weekend. Don't miss the upstairs, which is the more "alternative" part with Friendly Fire, described as "a curated selection of independent publishing by artists." It includes LTTR, Retard Riot, Cinders, Kate Glicksberg / Ridykeulous, and much more. It was near these that we saw j. morrison's area with manpurses screened while you waited -- viewer participation encouraged.
Afterwards we trudged home through the heavy rain, ate some pizza, and watched MTAA's DC 9/11 - The Evildoers' Remix. We got it via a donation to Turbulence.
Ming Fay
2004
Glass Mosaic
Fabricated by Franz Meyer of Munich
This is located in the subway station at Delancey Street.
We have two more great blog reviews of Dangling Between The Real Thing And The Sign In The Window. Some choice excerpts are below.
Inside the gallery, the mood swings back and forth between the dire and the ebullient.
The show successfully investigates the difference--or the lack thereof--between hawking and hawking in our disastrous times. Jaishri Abichandani's works are a riot, but I'm not saying that they're funny. Jacques Louis Vidal's amusement park terrorscapes started as eyerollers and turned into love at second sight. The real jaw dropper though is waiting out back, like a bad dream.
We'll be at the gallery 7ish on Friday (it's open 3-8 on Fridays) and 3-6PM on Sunday. This is the final weekend.
Here are my two recommendations for returns watching tonight.
I hope I won't have to make use of my book that arrived from Amazon today.
I just launched the first gallery client outside of the U.S., Galerie Open in Berlin. They are also one of the most customized sites.
Like a lot of busy tech types, I use RSS feeds to keep up with a lot of sites. What's RSS you ask? FeedBurner has a good explanation. Basically they are feeds published by a website that can be read by an external website or program. I use feeds to keep up with blogs and news sites so that I see when they have new items without having to actually visit the 100 different websites I'm tracking. My favorite applications for tracking RSS feeds are
- BlogLines (website)
- Google Reader (website)
- NetNewsWire Lite (OSX)
My webhosting service for artists and galleries, ArtCat, automatically generates RSS feeds for my clients so that it's easy for me to see when galleries have news or have added exhibitions, or when artists have new works and news items. Until ArtCat, I had never seen a gallery other than sixspace with a feed. It appears that sites running the exhibit-E software now are capable of generating RSS feeds if they wish. I first noticed this when visiting the Gagosian site to look at information on the Warhol shows.
I would like to think that ArtCat and ArtCal (which has several feeds) helped start this trend, but I doubt anyone's likely to say so out loud.
While we're on the subject of websites, what's the deal with big name galleries that don't have websites? I know they want to keep things "personal" for their collectors, but it really interferes with the ability of the less fortunate to get information on their artists and exhibitions. Marianne Boesky Gallery has a new building, but no website at the moment? Cohan and Leslie has taken down their old site and now there is just a placeholder. It's amazing to me that galleries don't work on a site at a temporary URL while keeping their old site up. It's not that hard. When galleries move their sites to ArtCat, they work on a temporary site until they have brought enough information over to launch. We don't relaunch with a blank site that says "coming soon."
Did you know that the sentence for Saddam Hussein was announced before our election, but the text of the verdict will come out later this week?
Related: A timeline of U.S. support for Saddam Hussein, 1959-1991.
Go see her amazing show of mathematical algorithmic obsessive paintings. It's the first time she has made paintings. This is the final weekend.
I haven't seen many mentions of this fair yet, but I've received a few emails from various galleries and non-profits that are involved.
It's in a pretty convenient location, as The Tunnel is the space in the middle of the building with all of the 27th Street galleries between 11th and 12th Avenues (plus Black & White on 28th). I remember the nightclub. It's where I first saw Ru Paul perform, at some kind of ACT UP benefit.
DATES/TIMES
November 25, 2006
Opening Night Preview to Benefit P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center: Thursday, November 2, 68 PM, Ticket info
FREE to the Public: Friday - Sunday, November 3-5
Hours: 11 AM - 7 PM Friday & Saturday; 11 AM - 4 PM Sunday
... I would sign up for the class that John Moran is teaching at 3rd Ward.
Introduction to Soundtrack
Instructor: John Moran
Location: Digital Media Lab
Mondays Nov 13, 20, 27 Dec 4, 11
7p-10p
$230 members/ $280 non-membersJohn Moran, a luminary sound artist, will introduce the "art of the soundtrack." Although not a software study, this class utilizes the application Reason to create a wide range of soundtracks, from the simple to the most advanced. The course will begin by covering the essentials of Reason in a group lesson format. After this, course time will be spent developing and critiquing individual student projects with specialized attention from the instructor.
An emphasis will be placed on hands-on applications and techniques for individual use to enhance subtlety and expressiveness in this inherently collaborative field. Students may bring to class work in film, video, animation, dance or theater as project material. If a student would like to create a piece that is sound only, this can be done as well.
Students are asked to bring their own headphones for use in the class. A midi keyboard will be helpful for some. It is not mandatory. One will be available in class. If you have your own you are welcome to bring it.
John Moran is an award winning sound/theater artist. He has generally been considered the protegé of composer Philip Glass. In 2003, Glass was quoted as saying, "I am convinced that there is no more important composer working today, than John Moran. His works have been so advanced as to be considered revolutionary." Moran has directed performers such as Uma Thurman, Iggy Pop, Allen Ginsberg and Julia Stiles, under commission from venues like Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Public Theater / NY Shakespeare Festival, The Kitchen, and a host of venues across America and Europe. Several of his works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City.
John Moran is a genius. I would liken his audio design to something like the best minimalists, but he uses sampled sounds and speech rather than musical motifs to assemble his works. James wrote about one of his performances in late August.
His opera The Manson Family is completely brilliant. My friend Noel Simmons was in one of the productions.
Below is a video of a performance at 3rd Ward by him and his collaborator Saori. This is more low-key (musically, not visually) than other work I've seen.
On Sunday, Mark Roth and Janna Olson of tinsquo (there is no status quo) took us up on our offer of a tour of Dangling Between The Real Thing And The Sign In The Window for any interested art bloggers. Their wonderful review of the show is here.
We will be around this coming Sunday as well from 3-6PM.
