June 2007 Archives

• Infoshop News - Exxon Hacks the Yes Men
  One day after the Yes Men made a joke announcement that ExxonMobil plans to turn billions of climate-change victims into a brand-new fuel called Vivoleum, the Yes Men's upstream internet service provider shut down Vivoleum.com, the Yes Men's spoof website
  tags: exxonmobil yesmen parody isp oil
• Silas H. Rhodes Dies at 91; Built School of Visual Arts - New York Times
  Silas H. Rhodes, co-founder of a trade school for cartoonists and illustrators in Manhattan that he built into the School of Visual Arts
  tags: art school sva nyc
• New media powerhouse Eyebeam now a decade old
  Article in Chelsea Now on Eyebeam
  tags: eyebeam art newmedia gallery nonprofit chelsea

This bit of street art seems to be a trend in Chelsea. See also: this photo from Michael Mandiberg.

• onNYTurf: More Mass Bike Clippings By NYPD - This Time in Williamsburg
  On June 28, without any warning, officers at the 94th precinct in Williamsburg confiscated bicycles that were parked and locked to street fixtures. Legally, bicycles may lock to sign posts and other street furniture.
  tags: nypd bicycle nyc
• Heather's Blog
  Heather Stephens of 31GRAND joins the art blogosphere
  tags: art blog gallery 31grand
• Gothamist: City Proposes Limits on Public Photography, Filming
  The Mayor's Office of Theater, Film, and Broadcasting, which coordinates film and television production and issues permits around the five boroughs, is considering rules that could potentially severely restrict the ability of even amateur photographers an
  tags: civilliberties nyc bloomberg photography video

James has a post on a proposal from The Mayor's Office of Theater, Film, and Broadcasting to make it harder to take photographs or film videos without getting a permit. This reminds me of our friend Donald's suggestion for protest signs saying

City only for use of paying customers

Egon Schiele
The Artist’s Bedroom in Neulengbach, 1911

This show ends July 2nd. We saw it yesterday (after a lovely lunch at Café Sabarsky) and highly recommend it. It's wonderful to stand in front of paintings of Van Gogh and others in a serene museum setting. My only quibble was the very grouchy bag inspector who barked "you have to check this!" regarding my 12 × 10 x 3 inch bag.

Visit the bad flash website for more information.

[image from the Neue Galerie's website]

• Anti-Murdoch protest from reporters at the Wall Street Journal
  Wall Street Journal reporters across the country chose not to show up to work this morning.
  tags: fox murdoch newscorp wsj news media
• Once Upon a Radical Time on the Lower East Side - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog
  This is probably the only time you will see a link from the NY Times website to the ACT UP homepage
  tags: politics nyc aids actup activism
• marc vallée | new york gay pride: the radical queer contingent | june 2007
  tags: stonewall march queer photography
• Hot jobs | Crain's New York Business | Lower Manhattan Cultural Council President
  Job ad for president of LMCC "Former president made $140,200 in 2005"
  tags: lmcc nonprofit art manhattan salary
• Columbia dean to expand art school | Crain's New York Business
  It won't be business as usual when Carol Becker takes the helm as the new dean of Columbia University's School of the Arts this fall. The award-winning academic plans to shake things up and bring the school into the 21st century with several new hires
  tags: columbia art school mfa
• A Brooklyn Life: ABL:Radio - Just Undo It - Mixed by Unjust
  excellent party mix with some good stuff from the late 80s and 90s
  tags: mixes music unjust
• Eureka Springs launches Domestic Partner Registry
  some good news out of my home state of Arkansas
  tags: arkansas queer civilrights eurekasprings marriage gay

Smaller NYPD class raises fears, AM New York (emphasis mine below)

Researchers and city officials Wednesday wondered if an increasingly stretched police force can continue to keep crime rates down on the same day that the NYPD fell far short in its goal of 2,800 recruits at cadet graduation.

...

While 1,097 cadets graduated Wednesday, the department is 1,828 short of the number of officers it is allowed to hire this year, an NYPD spokesman said. The force has steadily declined as veteran officers retire or leave the city to work in higher-paying areas.

Critics have charged that the city is unable to attract enough recruits because NYPD salary levels are not competitive with those in the suburbs and New Jersey. Police academy recruits start at $25,100, a rate that's lower than newly hired sanitation workers, Central Park gardeners and plumbing inspectors. Top pay maxes out at $59,588.

Related:

Hany Armanious, Lion Eyes, 2004-7 (detail view)

A bilingual announcement of a show in Paris arrived in my inbox last night from Foxy Production. The English section is reproduced below.

Castillo/Corrales and Galerie Balice inaugurate their guest program with "Lion Eyes", a project by Hany Armanious, organized by Foxy Production (New York).

Lion Eyes comprises a mechanized spiral vortex, known as a "trizonal space warper", and a copy of "Crying Boy", from the mythologized and widely reproduced series of paintings attributed to Bragolin, a Spanish artist also known by many other names. Armanious invites one to gaze at the "space warper", which after ten seconds confuses the brain, creating an hallucinatory undulating effect. When one then turns to the "Crying Boy", the space between it and the viewer seems to collapse as it billows out into three dimensions.

Using disparate materials and motifs, Armanious interweaves materiality and opticality to draw attention to widely overlooked or specious cultural phenomena. He produces installations and sculptural forms that are irreverent, critical, and anarchic.

Hany Armanious (Cairo, Egypt, 1962) holds a BA in Visual Arts from the City Art Institute, Sydney, Australia. He was included in the Aperto section of the 1993 Venice Biennale, the 1994 Sydney Biennale, and the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale. In 1998 he was awarded the Möet and Chandon Fellowship. In 2001 his major installation work Selflok was showcased at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. He currently has a solo exhibition at Wellington City Gallery, New Zealand. A new monograph on Armanious' work will be produced in partnership with IMA, Brisbane.

Foxy Production is a contemporary art gallery based in New York with a diverse program, whose mission is to foster distinctive artists that challenge both aesthetically and conceptually.

Galerie Balice will open this September in the near proximity of castillo/corrales.

castillo/corrales is a gallery run by a group of artists, curators and writers, based on the principle of French hospitality.

For further information or high resolution images contact Chelsea Goodchild: t: +1 212 239 2758

Related: James wrote about Hany Armanious's work that Foxy showed at The Armory Show.

See! I told you to go. Time Out NY loves it. We're seeing it tonight (Thursday).

Yet no mere catalog of the show’s selling points can do justice to its overall effect. Some of the stories involve the seemingly insignificant disappearance of small objects; others treat the loss of graver things like language, parts of dead bodies and, in Friedman’s songs, romantic attachment. These disparate tales are crafted into a mosaic whose abstract design is visible from afar, yet whose constituent parts retain their particularity. At once erudite and democratic, Gone Missing is not merely a witty, quick-footed and entertaining evening of theater; it is also a finely tuned inquiry into the nature of memory that manages to be forward-looking at the same time. Gone Missing’s links between past and present provide clear evidence of evolution in the world of modern theater. Miss it and weep.

• Edward_ Winkleman - The Logic Behind the 50/50 Split
  Amazing post by Edward Winkleman about the economics of running an art gallery.
  tags: art gallery economics business winkleman
• U.S. image plunges in global survey - Yahoo! News
  The United States' favorable ratings declined in 26 of the 33 countries for which a comparison was available, with negative views particularly strong in the Middle East.
  tags: usa foreign-policy image statistics
• Think Progress - 79.
  79. Percentage of Americans who believe openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military, versus 18 percent who do not, according to a new CNN poll.
  tags: gay military usa

Tom Sanford, Beckhams diptych [found on his blog]

I'm so happy that they've announced the opening date for their inaugural show on Ludlow Street: No New Tale To Tell.

Tom Sanford has more details.

Jacques tells me there will be more performances on July 6 and 7 at SUNDAY. See the previous blog post for more information on what to expect.

• Germany Bans Cruise Film Project from Military Sites
  A movie about an assasination attempt against Adolf Hitler has been barred from filming at German military sites because of US actor Tom Cruise's membership in the Church of Scientology.
  tags: tomcruise nazi history hitler stauffenberg scientology germany

Two fun YouTube finds.

Dan Deacon! I own a CD of his music. Local television in Savannah/Hilton Head is pretty hip if this is the kind of thing they present!

Deee-Lite

It's not as mortifying as I feared, although the bags under my eyes are pretty impressive. He did leave out my favorite part. When I said, "Collectors: don't let anyone else tell you what to buy," a cheer rose from the crowd.

• Media Matters - George Will: Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign spoke "for people furious about the '60s tumults"
  In his column in the July 2 edition of Newsweek, George F. Will described former Alabama Gov. George Wallace as an independent candidate who "succeed[ed] in giving an aggrieved minority a voice."
  tags: racism georgewallace georgewill stupid politics 1968
• YouTube = New Global Folk Art
  prairie dog video madness from Hrag Vartanian
  tags: prairiedog art video funny

Apparently, Jack Shainman isn't the only art dealer involved in real estate these days. Check out the website for The Machinery Exchange, which lists Max Protetch as one of the developers.

The Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performing “Arab Line.” (Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)

Cedar Lake Dance, the well-funded dance company on 26th Street in the former Annie Leibovitz studios, hasn't always received stellar reviews for its choreographic choices. While I hope they find some younger, underknown choreographers to work with, I have to say I am thrilled with what happened when they brought Ohad Naharin in for a residency with the company's dancers. If you didn't know it, you would think these dances had been working with him for years. It was one of my favorite evenings of dance in some time, and the music ranging from Arvo Pärt to Vivaldi to John Zorn is great fun too.

It runs through July 1. If you go, do NOT spend intermission away from the stage. The night we attended, Jon Bond performed a sexy and funny solo during that time. Go here to buy tickets.

Related links:

• New York Times review (where I got the photo)
• Brooklyn Rail interview with Ohad Naharin
• A 2005 column from Dance Insider about the morality of a well-funded dance company whose funds come from Wal-Mart
• My blog post from 2002 about Naharin's Virus at BAM

• About RSS - The Zen of MLM
  Good description of RSS feeds and why non-geeks should care about them
  tags: rss

I wrote about this excellent short work when we saw it in March. Now there is another chance to see it. It will be the best five bucks you spend this summer!

--

The Hellenic Laboratory, a collection of works of Greek drama, poetry, and philosophy, continues for one-night only!

Monday, June 25th @ 7:30pm, Tickets only $5
The Kitchen 512 West 19th St (btw 10/11 Ave)
To reserve tickets call 212-255-5793 ×11

(more) MEZE, an evening of five short pieces to whet your appetite

I've uploaded a flickr set from Jacques's opening on Friday. The show is titled "Wood Folks is Good Folks," and here is a video of part of the performance in which Jacques is helping transform people into the highest plane of being -- wood people. That's Jacques in the "house hat."

Click To Play

Via Caryn Coleman I learned of this benefit. There is an exhibition tomorrow at the Bubble Lounge, and an online auction which has already started and ends July 1 at 11:59pm.

--

Photojournalists from prestigious organizations such as National Geographic, the photo agency VII, TIME, Newsweek and The New York Times donate iconic works in an Exhibition and Online Print Auction to benefit victims of acid burning in Pakistan.

Live event to support the auction June 26th at 7 pm

Featuring prints by James Nachtwey , John Stanmeyer and Jan Grarup, only available for bidding during a silent auction at:

The Bubble Lounge
228 W Broadway
New York City
212.431.3433

With live performance by Sparlha Swa, projections by SeenUnseen, and of course champagne and lots of cool people!

World-renowned photojournalists are donating their favorite images, signed and printed, to raise money for female victims of acid burning and to raise awareness about a fate inflicted on many women in Pakistan. Marked with dishonor, their harsh disfigurement often forces them to live in the shadows of every-day life--excluded by family and society.

Here is your chance to literally change a woman's life while also owning some of the most compelling photojournalism of the modern era.

Online Auction items include never before available work by such photographers as The New York Times' Todd Heisler, whose emotional Pulitzer Prize-winning work on the return of deceased soldiers from Iraq will be available for purchase for the first time.

Participating photographers include:

• Lynsey Addario
• Samantha Appleton
• Andrea Bruce
• Marcus Bleasdale
• Tamas Dezso
• Jessica Dimmock
• Balazs Gardi
• David Gillanders
• David Guttenfelder
• Todd Heisler
• Lynn Johnson
• Ed Kashi
• Gary Knight
• Antonin Kratochvil
• Yuri Kozyrev
• Teru Kuwayama
• Shaul Schwartz
• Stephanie Sinclair
• Kadir Van Lohuizen
• Ami Vitale

Initially, the proceeds will help Azra Latif, a Pakistani woman who suffered third-degree acid burns on her face and torso and faces a lifetime of agony as her injuries continue to scar and worsen the longer they remain untreated.

Background

Azra, 33, was severely burned two years ago when her brother-in-law threw acid on her face during an argument.

When Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair first met her in 2005, at a shelter in Lahore, Pakistan, Azra said to her, "Everyone photographs me but no one helps."

So Sinclair contacted Marie Jose Brunel, a nurse with the French NGO HumaniTerra, who convinced the organization to provide Azra reconstructive surgery for free starting July 2. She will spend three-months in the hospital receiving multiple skin grafts. The money raised will help provide transportation, housing and other living expenses for Azra, and her husband, Abdul Latif. Any extra money will go towards helping future victims through the same life-saving process.

Special thanks to Chris Pacetti, Natasha Chandani, and Jon Resh, who helped with the graphic design on this project.

• Anti-spam activists strike
  our nephew Joe Wagner in the news for (successfully) taking spammers to small claims court
  tags: spam joewagner

• Preserving the 'Texas German'
  University researchers in the United States are documenting a dying Texas dialect born of German more than a century ago
  tags: german language texas dialect
• jameswagner.com: panel on radical history of Lower East Side
  June 26th, at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum -- includes our friend Jay Blotcher
  tags: queer history actup

assume vivid astro focus installation view with happy viewer

ArtCat's relentless march across 27th Street continues.

John Connelly Presents is the latest gallery to sign up for the ArtCat hosting service. A few pages are a little slow to load at the moment, as they have some huge images which haven't been web-optimized yet.

For a Friday in June, there is a lot going on tonight. Some recommendations follow.

Chelsea Opening

• Bayard, Do You See What I See? (these fags are for sale but you can't buy this queer) at Schroeder Romero - This project is presented in commemoration and celebration of the 38th anniversary of the death of Judy Garland and the birth of Gay Pride. Free commemorative caps for the first 144 mourners attending the reception and commemorative pins for all.

Lower East Side Openings

• New American Portrait at Jen Bekman - Co-curated by Ms. Bekman and Jörg Colberg, editor the photo blog Conscientious
• Jacques Louis Vidal at SUNDAY -- the first NYC solo show by one of the artists in our Dangling Between show
• New Mutants at Canada -- including recent Hoggard/Wagner acquisition Michael Williams

While you're in the area, you can stop by the Drag March too.

Other Stuff

• ROFL! - Touted as an Internet gong show of sorts, the competition takes place at 11:30 tonight at Joe’s Pub, and brings together some of the best web mavericks working today. The concept is simple: Eight cewebrities pit their best Internet finds and creations, and the audience determines the winner of each round of submissions. Participants include Marisa Olson and S.T. VanAirsdale of The Reeler.
• This looks like an excellent concert of piano music at 8pm at the Tenri Institute on West 13th Street. Our friend Idith Meshulam is one of the performers.

[image above is a detail of a Jacques Louis Vidal drawing from our show]

A new image from Peter Corrie, found in his flickr feed. He was in the show we curated last fall.

For those of you following along, I'm wondering if the powers that be are realizing that appearing to be hostile to parades, especially queer ones at this time of year, is a bad thing. According to onNYTurf, The Audre Lorde Project is getting their permit to parade in the streets on Friday after having been denied several times. They received their permit as they were about to take the NYPD to court.

It will be interesting to see how "un-permitted" and historic protest marches such as the Dyke March and the Drag March are treated.

• Rockefeller Foundation launches arts fund | Crain's New York Business
  Rockefeller Foundation Associate Director Joan Shigekawa says potential grantees could include museums, performing arts organizations, universities, dance companies, media organizations and more.
  tags: art foundation grants nyc rockefeller
• MoJoBlog - Who Needs It? Only Tiny Percentage of Baghdad Embassy Employees Speak Arabic
  Only 10 of the 200 Foreign Service officers in the US's Baghdad Embassy are proficient in Arabic
  tags: iraq arabic language usa
• Oily Yes Men - Hrag Vartanian
  YES MEN's Andy Bichlbaum, along with fellow Yes Men member Mike Bonanno, impersonated oil industry officials and announced a plan to turn human flesh into fuel at the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary, Alberta.
  tags: oil yesmen activism performance
• DJ Cosmo Is Indestructible - Mixed by Cosmo
  A great mix courtesy of A Brooklyn Life
  tags: music mixes djcosmo
• Housing Works - Positive Art for Positive Women
  online auction of art by HIV+ women
  tags: art aids charity housing housingworks nyc

Here are another couple of images from the Renee Ricardo-curated show I mentioned yesterday. The works are created by printing out stills of videos produced by visualizing audio information, then cutting them up and making collage/sculpture works.

• Trojans Lurking In Fake Video Postings On YouTube
  In the past week, two fake video postings have been set up on YouTube to infect users with a Trojan that includes pop-up porn ads
  tags: trojan spyware youtube
• FREEwilliamsburg: Music Hall of Williamsburg To Open 9-4-07 with Patti Smith
  formerly called Northsix
  tags: music williamsburg pattismith
• Josh Peters
  Showing tomorrow (Thursday) 12-6PM at Chelsea Terminal Warehouse, 261 Eleventh Avenue, between 27th and 28th Streets (in tunnel across from the sandwich shop)
  tags: art joshpeters gibsonprojects chelsea painting
• South Carolina treasurer indicted on cocaine charges - CNN.com
  Ravenel is also the state chairman for former Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.
  tags: politics gop giuliani

A full image and a detail of a Doug Morris foam and ribbon sculpture from "Homegrown" at David Krut Projects, curated by Renee Riccardo. Good light that day -- these photos were untouched by Photoshop.

Related to my previous post, here are a couple of news items of note.

• President Bush has spoken to UK PM Tony Blair about his becoming a Mid-East envoy, a White House official says. One of the running jokes in "The Trial of Tony Blair" is that Blair doesn't realize that he is increasingly irrelevant and most of the world hates him.
• Blair feared U.S. would ‘nuke the shit’ out of Afghans

Robert Lindsay as Tony Blair

BBC America presented this film on Sunday, but James and I just watched it tonight. I don't know how to get a copy to anyone, but if you have a friend who has DVR-ed it, ask them to see it. The premise:

The year is 2010, and Blair is giving his last ministerial broadcast, having finally handed over the reins of power to his deputy, Gordon Brown. On the other side of the Atlantic, President Hillary Clinton is campaigning for her second term at the White House, and former President Bush is in rehab.

...

To compound his problems, the International Criminal Court is looking to bring War Crimes charges against the former UK and U.S. leaders – and now that Blair isn’t Prime Minister, he no longer has Diplomatic Immunity from prosecution.

I looked at Google News to see who had written about it in the U.S,, and came up with very few items from this country. It's interesting to me that the New York Times never mentioned it. Perhaps it hits a little too close to home, and they fear some of their reporters might have to testify in such a trial.

• ArtCal - Leo Koenig, Inc. - You Always Move in Reverse
  Special Performance featuring Lydia Lunch on Thursday, June 28th 7-9PM RSVP required
  tags: lydialunch leokoenig art performance chelsea
• Newsday.com: Rudy missing in action for Iraq panel
  Giuliani's campaign fundraising kept him from commitment to the Iraq Study Group.
  tags: giuliani iraq war
• Annals of National Security: The General's Report: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
  Seymour M. Hersh's latest Abu Ghraib article
  tags: torture abughraib iraq
• Stockhausen's "Helicopter String Quartet" performed in Braunschweig, Germany
  The rarely played piece was performed from 700 meters (2,300 feet) above ground this week.
  tags: music contemporary stockhausen braunschweig germany
• Pumped Fiction Libretto | American Composers Alliance
  This opera on the subject of "organ enhancement" will be presented as part of ACA's festival on June 20th.
  tags: music opera funny

Joe Ovelman just wrote to tell us about the eBay celebrity camera auction benefiting the MIX Festival. There are five days left.

His camera is here and the entire list is here. It's a pretty interesting list. Mary Birdsong of downtown performance and Reno 911 fame is even included!

Sarah Peters Séance 2005 pen, pencil and charcoal on paper 18" × 24"

On Friday, James and I attended the opening of the Sarah Peters show at Winkleman Gallery. We loved it so much that we did something we've rarely done lately -- bought a new piece for the collection. We also made it a "top pick" on ArtCal. I titled this post "Full disclosure" as I don't want people thinking we secretly set things to top picks to influence the market. We're not in the business of selling our art, and so far have never de-accessioned a piece.

Update: James has a post on the show now, and supplied the image above.

Operation First Casualty, Memorial Day 2007. Photo by Lovella Calica. (From the Brooklyn Rail)

I can't believe I just now heard about this action. The Iraq Veterans Against the War staged a protest on Memorial Day in many locations in New York (including Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Ground Zero), with the goal of the bringing the reality of the Iraq War to America. The Brooklyn Rail has an excellent article, and the video above came from The Nation. Here is an excerpt from the Brooklyn Rail article.

It was Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of Fleet Week. At the corner of Broadway and 44th Street, a small group of men and women wearing oversized white t-shirts waited for the light to change. Tourists, military personnel and locals enjoying the long holiday weekend pushed and squeezed their way through the crowd.

Out of nowhere and without provocation, nine soldiers in full-desert fatigues appeared and screamed at the group in white to “get on the fucking ground.” The soldiers pinned people to the pavement and began “bagging and tagging,” using zip-ties on their wrist and stuffing bags over their heads.

People ran to get out of the way. The crowd pushed back to create a wall of wide eyes and open mouths around the soldiers. A hotdog vendor stopped in the middle of Broadway and held up traffic. Strangers exchanged looks of confusion and concern, unsure of what, if anything, should be done.

With precision, the soldiers moved quickly, separating the detainees from the rest of the group. As soon as the site was secure, the squad leader, Demond Mullins, called for the group to “form up” and they proceeded through the stunned crowd down Broadway.

If this were Iraq, a truck would have pulled up to transport those unfortunate detainees to a detention facility. Instead, people in black t-shirts with “Iraq Veterans Against the War” printed across the front quickly distributed fliers to on-lookers that read: “This is Operation First Casualty. The first casualty in war is the truth.”

Operation First Casualty is modeled after the Vietnam-era protest action Operation Rapid American Withdrawal that took place in Pennsylvania during the summer of 1970. This variation came out of a brainstorming session among the Washington D.C. chapter of IVAW earlier this year. The vets felt “tired of just being part of other people’s protest,” explained Adam Kokesh, a member of the D.C. chapter. IVAW, a national veterans organization founded in July of 2004, performed the first Operation First Casualty in D.C. this past March.

Update: Here is a flickr photoset from Joe Holmes of joe's nyc fame.

Black Flag at the Fireman's Hall in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. June 14, 1985. Henry was all giggly excited about his new back tattoo. Malcolm Tent tells me that Richard made the flag banner.

Click on the image to see more photos by Margaret Griffis.

[via Global Warming Your Cold Heart]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that the New York Police Department is in charge of deciding who is allowed to have a permit for political demonstrations and decides who gets a press pass for city press conferences?

Taken on the roof of the excellent party for Paige West's new book.

Hotel Chelsea Blog reports that the Bard family has been forced out of their management role. The family has been running it for over 100 years.

[photo from bwalsh on flickr]

Entrance of Pocket Utopia, with a salon poster intervention by Jonathan VanDyke

The page on ArtCal formerly know as "Williamsburg / Greenpoint" is now Williamsburg / Greenpoint / Bushwick, as the relentless march of gentrification means that many of the galleries that are interesting to James and me are increasingly distant from the Bedford and Lorimer stops. This doesn't mean we don't still have some favorites near those stops.

Here is an example: Brooklyn Fireproof now has an additional space in Bushwick called Temporary Storage that has a very interesting-looking show opening June 23rd.

"I Gave It Away"
Maria Dizzia, Jennifer R. Morris, Alison Weller
The Belt Theater
Photograph: Leslie Lyons

The Civilians are presenting Gone Missing at the Barrow Street Theatre (Barrow at Seventh Avenue) starting tonight. We've seen several incarnations of the play, and can't wait to see it again. I wrote about one performance in 2003. Note that the MP3s are gone since my bandwidth was getting killed from people hot-linking to my various files.

Here is a discount offer for friends of bloggy. Go to Broadway Offers and enter the discount code GMEMX24. That almost makes up for the extortionate fees Telecharge gets away with -- including a fee to email you a PDF of the tickets! The total charges were 25% of the $75 ticket price for 3 people! Check out this image:

One of Jonathan VanDyke's "trees" at Pocket Utopia.

Read James's post for more information, and check out my flickr set.

Daniel Isengart at the 28th Museum Mile Festival, 2006

Tonight is Museum Mile, when 23 blocks of Fifth Avenue along Central Park are closed to cars and museums are open late with free admission. The website has more information.

Our friend Daniel Isengart (alias Madame Butterfly) will be singing German Cabaret songs (with David Pearl on keyboard) on the steps of the Neue Galerie. In case of rain, go find him inside the Neue, at Café Sabarsky.

Neue Galerie
86th and Fifth
6-9PM (three sets)
Corner of 86th and 5th

How can you not love a singer who puts this on his website?

In the fall of 2003, Isengart brought an exclusive version of his One Man Show (entitled "Liederabend") to Berlin's legendary Cabaret establishment Bar Jeder Vernunft. Embraced by enthusiastic audiences, the show ran for 3 consecutive weeks, puzzling the scene's conservatives and the press.

[photo provided by Daniel Isengart]

I stumbled across this on flickr and liked it.

Via Digby.

Abstinence-only sex education is basically another way to send tax dollars to right-wing fundamentalist organizations. Remind me again why I should be expected to donate time or money to the Democratic Party if this is what having a Democratic congressional majority brings us?

I spotted this piece in the office at Monya Rowe Gallery yesterday. Go here to see a larger version. Other works from this series are in Larissa's solo show up now at Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles.

The Dancing of the Giglio will take place this year on July 8th and 15th. Here is a link to a PDF with the schedule.

Someone sent me a link to a video that uses footage from the event in the original town of Nola, Italy.

This looks like a good thing to attend tonight. We're stopping by before hitting a play at Atlantic Theater. A.R.T. was the creation of the late, great Bill Bartman.

Please join us Thursday, June 7th from 5:00 – 7:00 pm at Printed Matter to celebrate the publication of the fourth volume of Between Artists: Amy Sillman & Gregg Bordowitz.

Between Artists is a series of small format, conversation based books edited by Alejandro Cesarco. The books document different positions and strategies of leading and up-and-coming contemporary artists.

Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue between 21st and 22nd streets. The artists will be present.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A.R.T. Press is the publishing arm of Art Resources Transfer, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt organization founded in 1987 and dedicated to establishing access to the arts through publishing and community-oriented distribution. Art Resources Transfer is committed to documenting and supporting artists’ voices and work, and to making these voices accessible to the broadest possible public. Since its founding, Art Resources Transfer has maintained two interconnected program areas: publishing (A.R.T. Press), and the free distribution of books to underserved communities (D.U.C. Program).

For additional information on these programs, as well as ordering this and other A.R.T. Press titles please visit http://artresourcestransfer.org/artpress.php.

Via Blentwell I found this mix which is made up of sounds found via shortwave plus other songs. Visit lowlightmixes to download it and see the track listing.

Reminder: The NURTUREart benefit is tomorrow (Monday) at CUE Art Foundation on 25th Street in Chelsea. Come see us and say hi!

Spotted at La Granja de San Ildefonso, only 34 miles north of Madrid.

It's happening this weekend, June 1-3. Check out the website for a map and schedule.

Rune Olsen, Kissing Wolves

Our friend Rune Olsen's sculpture of "Kissing Wolves" goes on display today in a window at Saks Fifth Avenue, with the big reveal happening tonight from 7-9 at 49th and Fifth Avenue. It will be up through June 11.

If MoMA's not careful, Saks (despite having nothing on the site about Rune) may show more contemporary artists this year than they do. At least there is the Barbara London-curated "Automatic Update" coming soon.