9/28/10

Video Art Invades Woodstock!!!!

Still from video "Newspeak" by Liz Unterman


Looking for something to do this Friday night?  What are you interested in?
a) good times
b) cool looking stuff
c) fun peeps
d) great food and beer

If you picked a, b, c or d -- the answer for you is: The Woodstock Video Art Festival!!!! 

Come hang out with me and the other amazing artists on Friday night for a party and video screening!  

Opening Reception:
October 1st - 5 to 9pm
 @
Image Factory
1534 Rt. 212
Saugerties, NY
(3.5 miles east of Woodstock)

See you there!

9/27/10

Hail to the Collector


Wonderful collection of found photographs by John Foster.  Nicely curated selection in this Newsweek article with comments from collector.

Read the Newsweek article here.

Whether they are beautifully disturbing, accidentally mesmerizing or breathtakingly simple--these images possess such an unmistakable charm.   

9/20/10

David Maisel in Woodstock--Sat. Sept. 25th



This weekend David Maisel will be giving the last lecture of the summer season at CPW on Saturday, September 25 at 8PM. His bio is as follows:

David Maisel is a photographer and multimedia artist based in the San Francisco area. Maisel’s first book, /The Lake Project/, was published by Nazraeli Press and selected as one of the Top 25 Photography Books of 2004 by the critic Vince Aletti. Nazraeli Press published Maisel’s second book, /Oblivion/, in 2006, and Cascade Effect in 2008. Chronicle Books published his monograph /Library of Dust/ in 2008, which the New York Times called "...this year's most haunting book of images." /Library of Dust/ was the subject of a symposium in 2009 at the New York Institute for the Humanities. Maisel is the recipient of a 2008 Artist Residency from the Headlands Center for the Arts and a 2007 Scholar/Artist Residency from the Getty Research Institute. He was nominated for the 2009 Alpert Award in the Visual Arts, and short-listed for the 2008 Prix Pictet Award. Maisel has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Opsis Foundation. His work is widely exhibited, and is represented in major public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. To learn more about David, visit www.davidmaisel.com .

This is a unique opportunity to hear such an internationally renowned photographer so close to home.

The cost of the lecture is $5 for students, seniors, and CPW members, and $7 for the general public.

9/13/10

A day in Catskill...


J and I took a ride to Catskill this weekend to go on the Catskill Artist Studio Tour.  Some amazing talent were featured on the tour including Portia Munson, Jared Handelsman and Susan Wides.  Unfortunately, we did not make it to their studios-- instead we got caught up exploring the beautiful town. 

Within Catskill is Brik Gallery --- which I had never been to before but heard a lot about.  It is a lovely space and was hosting an exhibition Cowgirls 3. 

from website:
"Cowgirls 3" is curated by Rich Timperio, who owns the famous Sideshow Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Timperio calls the show "Good old fashioned fun, light-hearted and adventurous. It celebrates the collective creativity in our midst and showcases the diversity and style of art in the twenty-first century.”

This was a powerhouse of upstate artists.  Kiki Smith (who just moved to the area!), Joan Snyder, Tanya Marcuse, Fawn Potash, Charise Isis, and Mary Frank-- to name a few.  Great show--had a lot of fun looking through the diverse grouping.  It is up until September 19th.  


9/9/10

Mr. Toledano takes over Brooklyn



Image of Angel by Phillip Toledano

It is very exciting for me to see this work by one of my favorite artists, Phillip Toledano, at one of my favorite galleries in NYC, Klompching Gallery.

Almost all of Mr. Toledano's projects connect deeply to the psyche of the American culture in a unique and previously unexplored fashion.  This project in particular, A New Kind of Beauty, not only examines the current mood of our societal quirks, but it also steps into a future that is currently unfamiliar to most.  We see glimpses of this beauty all around the American media but it is not generally experienced in most of our daily lives.  Mr. Toledano brings this front and center in a profound and sophisticated way--by the poses and lighting he has chosen---which is opposite of the normal bright lights and exposed posing we see in the media. Instead of criticizing and judging this new beauty, he has left it as a blank slate--one for which there is no room for us to judge, but instead we can just simply experience.

In this experience, I see a world where the identifiers of self have greatly changed. In addition, the identifiers of sex have been magnified.  I see a new type of human being.

Phillip Toledano's exhibition is at Klompching in Dumbo, Brooklyn until October 29th.

Above: See some of Phil's other fascinating projects in books form.  (And by the way...Phil is a part-time upstate New Yorker.)