Bertolt Brecht remarked, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”Not A Crime, a campaign begun six months ago, uses the hammer of art to raise awareness to Iranian human rights abuses. On Monday, April 25 the first two of fifteen Harlem wall murals began to that shape at 2288 Frederick Douglass Blvd at 123rd Street and the Faison Firehouse Theater, 6 Hancock Place.
The murals created by both local and global street artists are designed to provoke conversation about human rights violations. The installation precedes Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani attendance at the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly. In true Faison Firehouse Theater style the event was marked with a catered reception.
There is no gallery selected or the gallery was deleted.
Guests got to experience street artists Ricky Lee Gordon transform the bare brick walk into a monument to social change. Not A Crime Founder Maziar Bahari partnered with Street Art Anarchy, who will curate the Harlem mural campaign. Bahari knows the oppressive human right conditions firsthand; the former Newsweek journalist became the subject of Jon Stewart’s film Rosewater after being jailed in Iran.
During a recent interview with Martha Graham Dance Company Artistic Director Janet Eilber we discussed the collaboration between Martha Graham and Isamu Noguchi on Appalachian Spring.
Graham and Noguchi worked together over 20 sets for Graham over the course of three decades, including those for her series based on Greek myths; Cave of the Heart (1946), Errand into the Maze (1947), Night Journey (1947), Clytemnestra (1958), Alcestis (1960), Phaedra (1962), Circe (1963), and Cartege of Eagles (1966) Noguchi also designed the set for her biblical and religious themes, including Herodiade (1944), Judith (1950), Seraphic Dialogue (1955), and Embattled Garden (1958). Probably the most recognizable collaboration is for her movement manifesto on Americana Appalachian Spring (1944).
Janet Eilber discusses Appalachian Spring
(Repost) April 1, 2014- Martha Graham: Appalachian Spring and Rite of Spring:
At first glance the Isamu Noguchi set, with its sparse flat look established the boundaries of the performance space. The “house” structure with the downstage “porch” set on a diagonal stops short of center stage. The flat fence placed downstage left, and the preacher’s pedestal set upstage on an angle from the fence completed the set design.
These configurations of objects create the converging lines; the lines that produce the classic perspective used by artists to direct the eye in paintings. Noguchi’s house mimics Brunelleschi’s drawing of perspective almost exactly. This is not an accident, but a conscience decision by Noguchi and Graham to subtly frame the choreography.
Most of the primary action takes place within the converging lines. Very little group choreography is designed behind the fence and nothing is set stage right of the house. Without obvious overkill Graham was able to effectively direct the viewer’s eye the primary movement conversion.
The close proximity of the downstage porch and fence to the audience builds closeness/empathy for the characters (especially the husband and wife). When these characters look out past the audience we can see the splendor of the open prairie on their faces. And we see it in the glorious “Technicolor” of our individual imaginations.
The universality of the experience extends beyond the American Prairie. This is the story of new beginnings, the optimism of youth, and the promise/hope for the future. Graham’s technical prowess creates a clear and unfettered moving picture, combine this with her ability to convey the humanistic elements of her characters and it becomes apparent why the public has endeared Appalachian Spring for over 70 years.
Wednesday, March 8th at 6PM Alexander Gray Associates, which represents the estate of the late artist, Hugh Steers hosted a probing discussion on the artists paintings. The 600 pictures completed over eleven years are found in Hugh Steers: The Complete Paintings, 1983-1994. The book tirelessly assembled for over five years by the nonprofit AIDS organization, Visual AIDS whose offices are doors away from the gallery.Continue reading
Gucci-Ghost, otherwise known as Trouble Andrew, is a NYC-based graffiti artist that made his name by spray painting his stylized take on Gucci’s double G logo pattern on walls and dumpsters around his neighborhood.
But rather than suing his irreverent ass into financial oblivion, the Italian fashion house enlisted him as a collaborator for its FW16 collection.
Ghost’s tags appeared on Gucci carrier bags and on pieces throughout the new seasonal range. Another example of urban art effecting the mainstream fashion industry.
Misty Copeland, principal dancer American Ballet Theatre, appears in the March issue of Harper’s Bazaar to recreate iconic ballet inspired paintings and sculpture from impressionist painter Edgar Degas. Congratulations to Copeland for once again disrupting the historical whiteness of ballet.
Copeland as Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green); Oscar de la Renta dress, $5,490
Photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory captured the world-renowned dancer for the eye-catching editorial spread. The resemblance to Degas’ original works of dancers at the Paris Opéra Ballet is uncanny. Copeland nails the graceful poses while dressed in high fashion designs by Valentino, Alexander McQueen, Carolina Herrera, and Oscar de la Renta that look like they were literally plucked from each painting and sculpture.
Copeland as Degas’s Dancer; Carolina Herrera top, $1,490, skirt, $4,990
In the article, she explains why she love to dance. “I was drawn to ballet and performing for a reason that I think a lot of people can’t really understand or relate to,” she says. “People think it’s like, ‘You’re out there,’ or ‘You’re exposed.’ But I felt safe when I was on the stage, like no one could get to me. It was the first time in my life that I felt protected.”
Copeland as Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen; Alexander McQueen dress, $4,655, and corset, $4,525
At 33, she’s in the midst of the most illuminating pas de deux with pop culture for a classical dancer since Mikhail Baryshnikov went toe-to-toe with Gregory Hines in White Nights.
Copeland as Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green); Oscar de la Renta dress, $5,490
Degas’s ballet works, which the artist began creating in the 1860s and continued making until the years before his death, in 1917, were infused with a very modern sensibility. He offered images of young girls congregating, practicing, laboring, dancing, training, and hanging around studios and the backstage areas of the theater.
Alberta Ferretti dress, $28,090
Copeland is engaged to Olu Evans, an attorney, who she’s been with for more than a decade. They live together in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She admits to an “intensifying” designer-footwear addiction, and while she’s still working out the details of her nuptials, she confesses giddily that Christian Louboutin is making her shoes for the occasion.
Roberto Cavalli skirt, price upon request
Misty Copeland- The Art Of Dance Video shot by Sandy Chase
Photography by Ken Browar and Deborah Ory of the NYC Dance Project
An auction of property from the celebrated lesbian heiress Marion B. ‘Joe’ Carstairs will be held on January 27th, 2016 at Doyle New York, 175 East 87th Street, New York. The collection consigned by the Estate of Jacqueline F. Rae will be open to the public on Monday, January 25, 10am-6pm and Tuesday, January 26, 10am-2pm. The objects reveal a courageous life live in the open at the turn of the twentieth century.
I believe LGBT grandchildren have an uncommon closeness with their grandparents. I am sure many an anecdote swirl about these intercessory parents of parents who bridge in an often-breached understanding between LGBT grandchildren and their parents. Grandma’s and grandpas, papas and nana’s seem to ‘get it’ when they see their next generation suffering because of their sexual identity. Grandparents pride and love for the offspring is sustaining in so many ways and so it was for Barbara Carstairs, mostly known as ‘Joe’.
Carstairs negligent father, a Colonel happened to be the son of one of the founders of Standard Oil Company. Her careless, often drugged up and carefree mother told her in 1918 that she knew of her daughter’s lesbianism. Her mother warned her to buckle down and get married or she would be disinherited. In that same year, her grandmother had set up a trust for her boyish granddaughter and nothing for Joe’s her daughter in law. Her grandmother died in 1921 and her estate was valued at $30 million dollars (an income of $145,000 a year in 1918). Carstairs’ protective grandmother trust afforded a security, privacy and protection that rebelling and closeted gays, lesbians and drag queens could never imagine.
Joe didn’t have to change pronouns at work when co-workers asked about what she did over the weekend or whom she might be courting at the time. Hell, Joe didn’t have to go to work. She had her own private island, which today has less than 15 buildings on it and is offered today for over $50 million U.S. Dollars. You can buy a biography of her life online for less than $1 (The Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale, 1997) to find out more about this speed racer, cross dresser and World War 1 Red Cross ambulance driver in Europe. She also had a stormy affair with actress and singer Marlene Dietrich. “…She was not a literary, intellectual type; but she nevertheless gave the impression of being a fictional creature, a product of her own imagination, a being who ‘Just was” writes Summerscale.
In keeping with her own eccentric character, Carstairs had a doll she named Lord Tod Wadley that wore tailor made clothes. It is here in this sale, along with a companion dolls and photographs in lot 248 with an estimate beginning at 500-800. Photographs of black residents from Whale Quay, Bahamas and nearby islands by Life Magazine photographer Wendy Hilty are estimated a mere $200-300, circa 1950’s. There are a lot of contact sheets depicting Duke and Duchess of Windsor visiting the island, seven lots featuring Marlene Dietrich memorabilia.
If you love history, LGBT archival information or simply digging through other people’s crap you should take the time to visit the sales room at Doyle to see the passage of time gone by and the effects of a bold accomplished woman who died in Florida after selling her beloved Whale Quay in 1975. She was cremated with Lord Tod Wadley.
Escape the cyber discount holiday shopping and remakes of remakes of Bing Crosby films; instead stretching your eyes and mind at Invisible Exports Gallery, 89 Eldridge Street (not far from the New Museum on Bowery Street). The exhibit is titled, Come On Daughter, Save Your Mother the work of Vaginal Davis (also known as Dr. Vaginal Creme Davis). Vaginal is homo-core punk, bi-lingual, bi-racial performance intersex singer cum artist and for almost ten years has lived, worked, taught and lectured in Berlin Germany. She has made art and music since the early 1980’s; Vaginal has adopted many personas– Clarence-a white supremacist rocker, Graziela Grejalva to aging deviant, John Dean Egg III and a singer in Afro Sisters. This is not your mother’s white Christmas, nor is the art.Continue reading
2Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am "Just Junk" A Thoughtful Pile Of Junk By Tremaine And CPFM from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
3"Just Junk" A Thoughtful Pile Of Junk By Tremaine And CPFM from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
4"Just Junk" A Thoughtful Pile Of Junk By Tremaine And CPFM from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
5"Just Junk" A Thoughtful Pile Of Junk By Tremaine And CPFM from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
6Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
7
8
9Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
10
11
12
13Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
14
15
16Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
17
18
19
20Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
21
22
23Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
24
25
26
27Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
28
29
30Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with Walter at 11:00 am
31
Upcoming Events
May 20, 2024
Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with WalterDance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with WalterTime: 11:00 am The Dance of the Village Elders are back ! This time we exercise, dance and just have fun through the zoom platform or in-person at R.A.I.N. Nereid
May 23, 2024
Dance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with WalterDance Of The Village Elders- In Person/Zoom with WalterTime: 11:00 am The Dance of the Village Elders are back ! This time we exercise, dance and just have fun through the zoom platform or in-person at R.A.I.N. Nereid