Soorya Deepak, freelancer, diplomat, Squirrel King. Knows how to write, does so rarely and will shower when Tibet is free.
The most unusual part of this whole experience is the realization that there are things in this world still indescribable and yet oddly understandable. There are no longer any limits to what art can show us.
In the thirteenth solo artists exhibition on the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden the famous duo Doug and Mike Starn have teamed up with the legendary Metropolitan Museum of Art to create, yet again, another piece of art that cannot be categorized, as usual. It is a mix of performance, sculpture, and architecture.
Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Don’t, and You Won’t Stop, consisting of 5,000 interlocking 30 and 40 foot‐long fresh‐cut bamboo poles lashed together with 50 miles of nylon rope, will continue to be constructed throughout the duration of the exhibit and will in the end take the form of a monumental cresting wave. The first phase of the structure measuring about 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 30 feet high was completed by opening day, April 27. [click to continue….]
Tagged as:
Doug Starn,
Mike Starn,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
When you get to Red Hook, look for a yellow sign.
The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) is indubitably a quintessential Brooklyn organization and nothing proves that more than the spring art show, Nailed, on view from May 8 – June 13, 2010.
This exhibit set inside a civil war warehouse on the Red Hook waterfront near the colossal Fairway market (click here for Ferry schedule), with a vista of New York Harbor is the venue in which BWAC carries out it’s two missions: the first, to help emerging artists advance their careers; the second to present the art-of-today in an easily accessible format.
Anyone who walks in can say confidently that BWAC goes above and beyond to accomplish these aims. It’s vaguely personal feel and obvious historical look lends a quiet charm. The wooden floors and economical yet spacious arrangement contrasts to the large, airy and sometimes intimidating spaces of other galleries around NYC. A free snack bar doesn’t hurt the cause. [click to continue….]
Tagged as:
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition,
Nailed,
Red Hook,
Unplugged in Red Hook
Semyon Semyonovich (Paco Tolson) was the biggest loser in Moscow, and then he decided to commit suicide. Now that you have the main idea, lets get the details down. Goodbye Cruel World (a Roundtable Ensemble piece, which ended its run at the ArcLight Theater in February) is an adaptation of Nikolai Erdman’s 1928 Russian comedy The Suicide. When it was written it was the object of competition for several Russian theatres; that is until big bad Stalin put a stop to it as part of his first five year plan to crack down on so-called dissident elements. So that put a damper on things until 50 years later when Moscow finally allowed a performance. It was a crying shame that the playwright was dead by then. [click to continue….]
Tagged as:
ArcLight Theater
My Friday evening started out with a typical hospital, linoleum floors, dull curtains… a sense of boredom. Upon this canvas the vivid portrait of a tortured soul came bursting out with an explosion of monologues, insanity and strangely, a disco ball. The theatrical painting I so favorably speak of is …Being Patient, a one-woman show acted, written, and choreographed by Kelly Samara at the TBG Theatre.
Our heroine emerges. Her drab smock belies the interesting mind of a mental patient with plenty of opinions, either tempered or twisted by her dependence on painkillers, about the world around her. She opens the show with a rant about various hospital staff including, but not limited to the confused nurse, adulterous doctor, and a little bit about her next door (or is it curtain?) neighbor Leonard. Then she goes on about a 300lb woman who got stuck in an MRI machine. [click to continue….]
Tagged as:
Purpose Theatre Company,
TBG Theatre
I’m glad that entrance to this exhibit is free [Ed.'s Note: All galleries are free to enter!] because there really weren’t that many works to see, although it looked pretty big from the street. However, I definitely enjoyed what was there though. It wasn’t a wasted afternoon.
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto Japan, 1929. In celebration of her eightieth year, the Gagosian Gallery in New York exhibited some of her artworks from April 16 — June 25 on the walls in large open spaces. Some of her art is painted on large square canvasses taller than the average teenager. There are a bit more than 15 canvases, the bulk of which have colors brighter than the fourth of July and are great contrasts to a rainy day.
The exhibit starts of with a self-portrait of the artist herself composed entirely of small circles and a green and black background. Neither cheerful nor depressing it is a good thing to shove in people’s faces as they walk in. Then you walk into a large room with several canvases mainly consisting of acrylic paintings of a solid background covered in circles of a contrasting color. This description does not do justice to the variety, color and emotion of each painting. Many of them consisting of only two colors are simple but can still express strong emotions. [click to continue….]
Tagged as:
Gagosian Gallery,
Yayoi Kusama
Pure Confidence is a great name for a horse, especially one that wins races regularly. However, a horse needs an equally good jockey to accomplish anything. This lesson is what people take home after watching Pure Confidence at the 59E59 theatre in Manhattan.
Pure Confidence begins before the civil war and follows the story of an enslaved African-American jockey by the name of Simon. He even impresses his master, the colonel, and gains the affection of his master’s wife. His talent on the track gains him some fans including the esteemed General Dewitt who eventually tries to hire Simon to race for him, but is outbid by the Colonel, proud of his young jockey that he starts to see as a friend more than a servant. He eventually becomes so successful that he buys himself out of slavery and takes his girlfriend Caroline with him. After that the Colonel, his wife, Simon and Caroline go on tour to races all over the country with Simon making a name for himself.
This all stops at Saratoga. The Colonel told Simon that racers in the north were much tougher and played dirty, but Simon, drunk on his success, took no notice. When they eventually got to Saratoga, Simon found out the hard way that everything the Colonel said was true. He was permanently injured during the race and his racing career was over.
This play is a study in the relations between master and slave and how those relations change when the slave becomes free and he goes from being the servant to business partner. The acting in this play featured a lot of shouting, sadness, anger, and a little bit of comedy here and there. Very entertaining and a great pick me up for a bad day. A great play for people who like stories of success and failure.
Tagged as:
59e59,
pure confidence
A deserted pier is a good place to sit and feel lonely and a great opening scene for 
The only time I’ve seen banana beer, bollywood theme songs, punk rock, and angels in the same place was not Woodstock, but the 
