this weekend’s art pick

If you’re looking for something arty to do among all the holiday parties this weekend, Nicholas Muellner’s senior photo students at IC are having their thesis exhibition this weekend, and the opening is tomorrow evening.  If you’re around, stop by – there is bound to be some good work.  Plus, Nick notes that it is ‘ a cool weird space that smells a little bit like sweat.’   (It takes place in the Tanfastic Building.)  Hope to see you there.

 

Space for Rent: A Photo Workshop Exhibition
Opening: Friday, December 16, 7-11 PM
Location: 609 West Clinton St. (behind Tanfastic)
Additional gallery hours: Saturday and Sunday (17th and 18th), 12-5 PM

Scenes from Arcades Project

The photo gallery from Friday’s Arcades Project has been posted on the Arcades Project website.

A special thank you to all the artists, vendors, performers, and visitors who came out to the event  and helped make it a success.  We hope to see you at the next one in May!

Here are some of the images from the event,  Click here to see them all.

Photo Credit: Ed Dittenhoefer

Photo Credit: Ed Dittenhoefer

Photo Credit: Ed Dittenhoefer

Photo Credit: Ed Dittenhoefer

a very pleasant art-filled weekend

I am just on the verge of concluding a rather delightful art-filled weekend in Ithaca. The Winter Arcades Project Showcase on Friday was a smashing success, with so many of our vendors making new contacts and many sales. Pictures coming soon..

All evening on Friday, Gallery Night in Ithaca was buzzing with life, and from what I could see, the streets downtown, and all of the galleries and special events were filled with visitors.

Last evening I was fortunate enough to be invited by a friend to the opening night of the Kitchen Theatre’s production of The Mystery of Irma Vep, Charles Ludlam’s ‘irresistible, wickedly funny, cross-dressing send-up of the gothic horror genre (and practically everything else.)’  The 2-man play was laden with vampires, werewolves, Egyptian mythology and black magic, not to mention just about every pun, cliche and double-entendre you’ve ever heard. I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it.

Today, a rather lazy and wonderful Sunday, I popped up to the Johnson Museum to spend some time in the new wing taking in my friends from the New York School – Gorky, deKooning, Clyfford Still, et al – to have a look at the little Dada show and to check out the views from the newly-renovated fifth floor. If you haven’t been up there yet to see the new addition, I highly recommend it. What better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, especially once the temperature begins to dip..which will happen soon, right?

The Poem of Display

Winter Arcades Project. This Friday, 5-9pm. Taking place at Standard Art Supply & Souvenir during Ithaca’s First Friday Gallery Night.

Nice write up in this week’s Tompkins Weekly.

And, in this week’s Ithaca Times.

More to come.

meal & roti

In lieu of a new blog entry, check out my interview with Meal & Roti in this week’s Ithaca Times:

Here’s an excerpt:

Public Artists Meal and Roti Hang Show Inside

Ed Dittenhoefer

Sistine Parking Garage

French public artist Roti paints mural on the Green Street parking garage.

Posted: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 3:50 pm, Wed Nov 16, 2011.

By Wylie Schwartz

Since arriving in Ithaca almost one month ago, the 23-year old French street artist who goes by the name Roti has painted six murals in town – three at private residences, and three large-scale public works – each containing elements of fantasy architecture enlivened with imaginative creatures who are often portrayed in transit: whimsical caricatures pointing toward a departure from human absurdity.  On the side of the building in the West End at the intersection of Taughannock Blvd and Seneca Street, a giant fish rises from a castle (or some other Palladian pile) as it attempts to catch a ball in its mouth, and on the old Green Street parking ramp next to city hall, a flying top-hat wearing horse and his Alice in Wonderland she-wolf companion are about to be hoisted aboard a great flying ark. The latter mural was, for the record, created at the invitation of Ithaca’s Public Arts Commission.

The most recent piece, a large painting on the east façade of the newly opened Standard Art Supply and Souvenir on Seneca Street represents a collaboration with a British graffiti artist called Meal, who has lived in Ithaca for the past six years and whose outdoor mural work can be found at sites such as GIAC, AJ’s Foreign Auto on Cherry Street, and the Ithaca Skatepark.  In conjunction with their recent collaboration, the two artists currently have a dual exhibit on view at Standard Art.

Taking some time to talk with us after a mind-bogglingly productive spurt of artistic output, we asked the pair about their origins as artists, what inspires them to work in the street, and what would be their ultimate surface to paint.

Read the entire interview by clicking this link.

Dec 2: Arcades Project Showcase

Arcades Project
The Poem of Display
art books + book arts + small presses + editions + multiples + games
Friday, Dec 2nd, 5pm-9pm
308 E. Seneca St.,Ithaca

On Friday, Dec 2, the newly-opened Standard Art Supply and Souvenir at 318 E. Seneca St.will be transformed into an experimental marketplace of literature, art, and design, when local and regional independent presses, makers of art books and editions, conceptual artists, and indie craft vendors will convene to offer visitors an alternative and thought-provoking shopping experience.

Taking place during December’s Downtown Gallery Night, the event will offer gallery visitors and holiday shoppers a chance to purchase affordable and original works of art and literature. Expect to find original titles by local and regional presses, art books, book arts, zines, mobiles, jewelry, silkscreened t-shirts, artist prints, as well as a number of original artist-made puzzles and games. Vendors include Ithaca City of Asylum, Sunnyoutside, A-Jump Books, Stockport Flats, Louise Felker, Preacher’s Biscuits, Lauren Valchuis, Essay Press, Werner Sun, Kaleb Hunkle, Essays & Fictions, and Josh Sperling.

Arcades Project also will host a curated series of works by selected visual artists who creatively explore the relationship between visual arts and the marketplace. Works include a performative interactive market stall by local artist Ben Altman who will invite visitors to barter using silk scarves screen printed with original works of photography, as well as Buffalo-based artist Alexander Derwick whose interactive virtual video-game titled ‘The Domestic Animal Entertainment System (DAES)’ will offer visitors a chance to travel throughout the Arcades Project space while hooked up to a video game which enables the viewer/gamer to safely experience ‘a range of fantasies from our universe’ in a simulated version of an internal world.  During the evening, Derwick also will offer an interactive scavenger hunt.

The event will take place on Friday, Dec 2 from 5 to 9 pm at Standard Art Supply and Souvenir, located at 308 E. Seneca St. ArcadesProject is founded by Danielle Winterton and David Nelson Pollock, founding editors of Essays & Fictions Press, artist Karen Brummund, and local art critic Wylie Schwartz.

Winter 2011 participants include:

City of Asylum

Sunnyoutside

A-Jump Books

Stockport Flats

Alexander Derwick

Louise Felker

Preacher’s Biscuits

Lauren Valchuis

Essay Press

Ben Altman

Werner Sun

Kaleb Hunkele

Essays & Fictions

Josh Sperling

call for artists

The Finger Lakes Wine Center is seeking artists for Downtown Ithaca Gallery Night for December 2^nd.

The event will take place from 5-9pm and will feature  ’Art of Wine Country’ with a tasting menu and mini-workshop the “Art of Wine tasting.”

Artwork will be mounted on display wires or on easels.   The show will remain up until December 10.

If you are interested in being a part of the show and would like to submit digital samples of works for consideration, please email manager@fingerlakeswinecenter.org.

The Wine Center will continue to present shows for Gallery Night throughout 2012.

For more information call 607-882-9663 or email the address above.

SASS

The Arcades Project team (including yours truly) is excited to announce that we will be holding the next installment of Arcades Project at Standard Art Supply and Souvenir, located at 308 E. Seneca St next to The Shop. The event will take place on Dec 2nd during Gallery Night from 5 to 9pm and will offer holiday shoppers a chance to peruse and buy affordable, original works of art and literature with a variety of indie crafts, oddities and curiosities.

I visited the space again this past Friday for the new show that is up – a collaboration between Roti, the French Muralist  I wrote about in a previous entry as well as an English artist who calls himself MEAL – who exhibited a series of drawings and paintings in their unique style of street art as well as one intriguing and inventive work of sculptural assemblage made from paint cans and other bits and bobs, and included a series of abstract paper multiples which stretched from the east wall, up to the ceiling and back down to the piece, making the art space and gallery space indistinguishable  - a very Daniel Buren early 1960s dawn-of-conceptualism kind of institutional critique which was invigorating to see at a local gallery.

Plus where else other than in art do you see an Englishman and a Frenchman working so nicely together – exciting to have it all happening here in Ithaca.  Not to mention the mural created by the duo on the east wall outside the gallery is another scintillating addition to Ithaca’s public art offerings.

Beginning this Thursday Standard Art Supply and Souvenir will be open 10-7 THURS- SAT  Sun 10-5 Tuesday & Wed 12:30-7.  Closed on monday. Definitely stop by and check this show out.

I am excited beyond belief to have this space as part of downtown Ithaca’s gallery offerings, and especially that we will hold our next Arcades Project there.

So please save the date!

Arcades Project Showcase

art books + book arts + small presses + editions + multiples + games
December 2, 2011

location: Standard Art Supply & Souvenir, 308 E. Seneca St., Ithaca

5pm – 9pm

Arcades Project is an experimental marketplace of literature, art, and design, where local and regional independent presses, makers of art books and editions, conceptual artists, and indie craft vendors will convene to offer visitors an alternative and thought-provoking shopping experience.

Participants include: Barbara Adams, David McNamara, A-Jump Books, Stockport Flats, Alexander Derwick, Louise Felker, Comet Skateboards, Preacher’s Biscuits, Lauren Valchuis, Essay Press, Ben Altman, Werner Sun, Kaleb Hunkle, Josh Sperling, and Essays and Fictions

Visit the Arcades Project website

clown

                                                                                                                                                          Untitled, Clown, Jesse Hill, 2011

I just returned from a weekend in NYC, where I visited the de Kooning retrospective at the MoMA. The show spans the great American painter’s rather massive and phenomenal oeuvre, taking up the entire 6th floor of the museum. Seeing all of his work together in one space makes it clear why he is considered to be one of the most important painters of the 20th century. What ravishing color, such imaginative and impeccable sense of design, offering one glorious masterpiece after another.

I also had time to check out a bit of the permanent collection, and saw some very fine Picabia paintings and a couple of Duchamp pieces in the Dada room I had never seen before, such as a cute little assemblage called To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour, a mini version of an aspect of the great Large Glass.  The work shattered when it was first being transported to a gallery, an act which of course delighted Duchamp. I finally had to tear myself away to  head south to Wall Street to extend my support to the protesters for trying to make the world a better place, before schlepping back to Ithaca.

Now back, we’re occupied with preparing the gallery space for the final show of the season – a new series of paintings and sculpture by local artist Jesse Hill which goes up this week.  As you can see from the image above (untitled, clown, 2011)  Hill is quite a talented colorist in his own right. I like the East-meets-West vibe taking place in this picture, and the Zen painting within the painting that the figure (rodeo clown?)  is holding up to show us, and the way the whole scene appears to be rising up out of a sea of aquamarine waves crashing in the foreground.

I can’t wait to see more.

The opening reception is this Saturday from 6pm to late.

public art happening

I finally made it down to see the French muralist who has been creating such a buzz around town, and I’ll say it was well worth the hype.  Definitely stop and have a look the next time you’re driving down Green Street.  The piece is being created as we speak on the parking ramp outside City Hall, across the street from the public library.

Being reminded of Max Ernst every time one goes to pay a parking ticket is an accomplishment in itself, but this surrealist dreamscape is an absolute joy to behold and a welcome addition to Ithaca’s public art offerings. Hopefully there will be more of this to come.