[click here if you don't see the video above]

Nola House and Lines, 2008, Digital C Print, 15 × 15 inches, edition of 8

Bicycle Riot Cops, 2007, Digital C Print, 12.25 × 8.25 inches, edition of 10

Dead Man (Mississippi Series), 2006, Digital C Print, 12" × 12 inches, edition of 8

Tomorrow (Saturday the 9th) is the last day to see Tod Seelie's show, titled Slowdancing to Slayer, at Cinders Gallery in Williamsburg -- their first photo show. They've had something come up and are not open today, so head on over tomorrow for some great photography at bargain prices. The prints are approximately $200-600, framed. There is something for everyone, from portraits of people along the Mississippi to shots of punk shows in abandoned warehouses.

In addition to really loving this show, I have another connection. Everyone asks about the balsa wood squirrel sculpture in our living room, hanging on an old column. It's by Kim Schifino and James and I bought it a year ago at The Porch Show at Cinders. Tod is currently touring with the band she formed with Matt Johnson, Matt and Kim, and CSS. Check out his blog suckapants.com for photos. You can buy Matt and Kim CDs at Cinders. That's where I got mine.

All images above are from the Cinders Gallery website.

Kendrick Mar
Tell Me, 2006
oil on canvas, 34 × 36 inches

I haven't been blogging about art because I find it difficult to look at art when it's this hot outside. The galleries I want to go to (as opposed to the behemoths with retail-quality a/c) can get pretty warm during these weather conditions.

Here are some recommended actions, regardless of the heat. You should also check out what the other Culture Pundits bloggers are posting.

Visit Kendrick Mar's website to check out his art. His artist statement says:

My work is metaphorical self-portraiture that addresses childhood emotions and trauma. Issues surrounding memory, family dysfunction and being adopted manifest strongly in my work. Children's books and television programs present a collective narrative in which grown-ups care for the best interests of their children. The pernicious disparity between this fiction and the brutal reality of childhood is the terrain I am most interested in exploring.

I found him via the Culture Pundits Artists program.

Listen to excellent music from Chiapas and Oaxaca via the widget below, or buy the CD.

Go see the Joao Ribas-curated show at Andrew Kreps before it closes Friday.

Attend Over The Opening on Friday, July 18th, from 7 to 10pm -- new installation by Dana Strasser and Isabella Bruno.

1. Listen to David Behrman. [If you're using a feed reader to see this, you may not see the music widget below.]

2. Go see Half of the People Are Stoned and the Other Half Are Waiting for the Next Election in Brooklyn, July 1 at 8pm. The title of the evening comes from the text of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.

Dancers in Mark Morris’s production of "King Arthur" at New York City Opera (Richard Termine for The New York Times)

Here is a reminder that the $25 tickets program continues at NYC Opera. Check the website for schedule and details. We're going to see Purcell's "King Arthur" (with costumes by Isaac Mizrahi), which is frankly somewhere in between a masque and an opera. We fell in love with it after watching a DVD of a Salzburg production. Ignore the bitchy "I don't like my opera productions to be too innovative" comments on Amazon.

James and I are headed to this on the 15th. For the art crowd, you may have heard of Ichiyanagi's wife from 1956-63, Yoko Ono.

Ensemble Origin at Zankel Hall
March 14th and 15th, 7:30pm

Featuring the Shinnyo-En Chorus of Japan and Music by the Seminal Japanese Avant-Garde Composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ensemble Origin’s Founder and Artistic Director

Presented with support of The Japan Foundation
and the cooperation of the Consulate General of Japan in New York
and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University.

Sponsored by Shinnyo-En

In 1998, fifty years into a storied career, the Japanese composer Toshi
Ichiyanagi undertook an ambitious project with a two-part mission: to
reconstruct ancient instruments preserved in Japan and to employ them in the
creation of a new kind of music. He and a diverse network of collaborators
would present the music‹performed on the restored Silk Road instruments‹in
concerts around the world. By 2006, with assistance from the Buddhist order
Shinnyo-en (as part of their contribution to the arts), the project had
succeeded in recreating 14 kinds of ancient musical instruments, including
examples from China and other parts of Asia, and in assembling a team of
musicians who could play those instruments, under the name Ensemble Origin.

Meghan McGeary as Hannah

I wrote about an extraordinary musical theater work called "The Blue Flower" in early 2003. A quote:

The historical context and references range from the events leading to WW I, the Weimar Republic, a fictionalized menage of Franz Marc, Max Beckmann, Hannah Höch, and Marie Curie, plus Dada. Part of it takes place at the Cabaret Voltaire -- the last time Zurich was really interesting.

There is a new production running through March 2nd at The West End Theater (86th and Broadway). Visit www.theblueflower.org or go here to buy tickets.

Visit their myspace page to hear some of the music.

[the image above is from the Blue Flower's website]

James and I don't only follow the purely visual arts. We attend a lot of theater, dance, and other performance. The next few weeks have a lot of things of interest. I'll do several posts with recommendations, but this one is really important, and has a visual component too. Come see it with us on the 1st.

Ensemble Pi: The Rest is Silence

Saturday March 1st, 2008 at 8pm
Tickets at the door $15.

Venue:
The Great Hall at Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue
map

Program:

• William Kentridge, Philip Miller: Two Shorts from Nine Projections featuring a live performance of original score for string quartet, trumpet and piano (2003)
• Frederic Rzewski: Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, for piano (2003) U.S. premiere
• John Harbison: Abu Ghraib, for cello and piano (2006) N.Y. premiere
• Kristin Norderval: Far From Home, for two voices and computer-generated sound (2007)
• Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano trio No 2 in E minor, opus 67 (1944)

Guest Speaker: Naomi Wolf, author: The End of America

[image at top is Eyal Danieli, invitation for Ensemble Pi]

I just listened to this excellent (July 2007 -- I'm behind) podcast from Tim Baker's Radio Clash Podcast featuring RX, the musical genius responsible for such mashups as the George Bush "Imagine/Walk on the Wildside," "Dick is a Killer," and "White Lines." Click the play button below, or the podcast link above, to listen.

powered by ODEO

You can also visit RX's YouTube page to watch his RX2008 presidential campaign videos.

photo by Ruth Waltz for the International Herald Tribune

The IHT has a review of the premiere of Hanz Werner Henze's new opera, "Phaedra" at the Berlin Staatsoper. In New York, the opera world thinks an opera by freakin' Richard Danielpour is some kind of breakthrough, but Berlin gets a premiere by one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, with designs by Olafur Eliasson no less!

They're also doing a new production of Medeamaterial by Pascal Dusapin (based on the Heiner Müller play) directed and choreographed by Sasha Waltz! I can't stand it!

It's time to interest some of those hedge fund billionaires in some contemporary music methinks.