All posts by amt

Quick Hit: Street Artist Swoon goes down the Hudson

Events, Performances, Randomly Intriguing, , , , , ,

Carol Vogel did a quick write-up in the New York Times about Swoon, a street artist who works in Brooklyn and the NYC-area.  Here’s the scoop on an interesting event happening this Friday:

SWOON, the Brooklyn street artist, strikes again, this time along the Hudson River. On Friday she is opening “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea,” a project involving a fleet of seven boats — raftlike vessels handcrafted from scrap wood and salvaged materials — that will float down the Hudson River from Troy, N.Y., to Deitch Studios in Long Island City, Queens.

Along the way the playwright Lisa D’Amour will give a performance from the decks of the rafts and from the banks of the towns along the river. Swoon is also collaborating with the circus composer Sxip Shirey, as well as a group of Bay Area artists and mechanics who call themselves Kinetic Steam Works and who are dedicated to powering kinetic artwork with steam. A band, Dark Dark Dark (accordion, cello, upright bass and banjo), will perform along the journey too.

Each of Swoon’s rafts uses alternative energy sources, including biofuels and solar power. When the journey ends in Long Island City on Sept. 7, Swoon’s “invented landscape” installations will open to the public at Deitch Studios there.

You can read Gamma Blog’s interview with Swoon here and there’s a list of other articles about her and her work here.

[art by Swoon]

Last Days: “Crocodile Tears” at Giant Robot NY

Events, Exhibitions, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, , , , , , , ,

Crocodile Tears: Small Works of Art by Over 50 Artists
GRNY, July 19 – August 13, 2008
Reception: Saturday, July 19, 6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Giant Robot is proud to present Crocodile Tears: Small Works of Art by Over 50 Artists at the GRNY Gallery.

Following up on 2007’s hugely popular Look Behind You and Snack Isle group shows, Crocodile Tears will feature a large assortment small works that measure 5″ x 7″ or smaller. Each of the over 50 artists (editor’s note: featuring Parsons Illustration alums and faculty!) will be contributing two to five pieces in his or her own eclectic style. Mediums will range from painting to stitching to drawing to sculpture.

Continue reading →

Guy Billout written up at “Lines and Colors”

General Info, Illustration Faculty, , ,

Charley Parker over at Lines and Colors did a great little write-up about longtime Illustration faculty member Guy Billout.  Here’s a taste:

Like all of those artists, Billout excels at that aspect of art that brings us to a refreshingly different point of view on the world. He lays out a a geometric grid of stillness to quite our minds, and then drops a pebble of irony into the pool, allowing it to gently ripple through our unconscious mind until it dawns on us that, indeed, something’s not quite right here; but not quite right in a most delightful way.

You can read the rest of the article here and then find more of Guy’s work at his own website.

[image by Guy Billout from Wired Magazine]

Last Minute: Typhon Book Signing

Events, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Industry, Publications, , , , ,

NYC area comics aficionados are invited to a TYPHON book signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe on Wednesday, August 6th from 6-8PM!  Parsons Illustration Alum R. Sikoryak drew the cover and a story for the collection.  Congratulations, Bob!

Pick up a copy of the brand new, 192 page, full-color comics anthology TYPHON Volume One, and get it signed by these TYPHON contributors:

Gregory Benton
Victor “Bald Eagles” Cayro
Mike Edison
Glenn Head
Danny Hellman
Cliff Mott
Bruno “Hugo” Nadalin
Chris “Steak Mtn” Norris
R. Sikoryak (Illustration Alum and Current Faculty)
Doug Skinner
Matthew Thurber
Motohiko Tokuta

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Jim Hanley’s Universe (Manhattan)
4 West 33rd Street
New York, NY

[illustration by R. Sikoryak]

Repost and Remind: Rory Hayes & “Where Demented Wented”

Events, Publications, , , , ,

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS & DESERT ISLAND present:

WHERE DEMENTED WENTED:
Celebrating the Comics and Art of RORY HAYES

Join us for a book release party and panel discussion featuring:

KIM DEITCH
BILL GRIFFITH
GEOFFREY HAYES
and moderator
DAN NADEL

WHAT: Book Release Party for WHERE DEMENTED WENTED: THE ART AND COMICS OF RORY HAYES, with panel discussion and Q&A

WHO: Dan Nadel, Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith & Geoffrey Hayes

WHERE: DESERT ISLAND • 540 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn, NY •718.388.5087 

WHEN: Friday, August 8, 7PM (discussion begins at 8PM)

FREE ADMISSION
An exclusive, limited-edition Hayes silkscreen will be available for this event.

The controversial cartoonist Rory Hayes was a self-taught dynamo of the underground comics revolution. Attracting equal parts derision and praise (the latter from the likes of R. Crumb and Bill Griffith), Hayes emerged as comics’ great primitive, drawing horror comics in a genuinely horrifying and hallucinator manner (some have called him the Fletcher Hanks of the underground). He has influenced a generation of cartoonists, from RAW to Fort Thunder and back again.

On Friday, Aug. 8, on what would have been Hayes’ 59th birthday (Hayes died of a drug overdose in 1983), Desert Island and Fantagraphics Books will celebrate the life and art of Rory Hayes with a special evening celebrating the release of WHERE DEMENTED WENTED, the first-ever collection of Hayes’ legendary comics and art.

Editor Dan Nadel (Gary Panter, The Wilco Book) will moderate a discussion of Hayes’ work with three men who knew and worked with Hayes: Kim Deitch (creator of Waldo the Cat), Bill Griffith (creator of Zippy the Pinhead), and Geoffrey Hayes (brother of Rory and author of the recent Benny and Penny from Toon Books).

WHERE DEMENTED WENTED: THE ART AND COMIX OF RORY HAYES is the first retrospective of Hayes’ career ever published, features the best of his underground comics output alongside paintings, covers, and artifacts rarely seen by human eyes—as well as astounding, previously unprinted comics from his teenage years and movie posters for his numerous homemade films. The Art and Comix of Rory Hayes also serves as a biography and critique with a memoir of growing up with Rory by his brother, the illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, and a career-spanning essay by Edward Pouncey (a.k.a. Savage Pencil). Also included is a rare interview with Hayes himself.

This should be a great event and a fantastic book.  Check ’em both out!

Guillermo Riveros in Pensive States show!

Current Students, Events, Exhibitions, ,

The Broadway Gallery is please to announce the upcoming group show Pensive States. The exhibition, featuring the works of Sefkat Islegen, Giovanni Carlo Rocca, Daniel McKinley, Helen Joynson and Guillermo Riveros (current Illustration student!) will be held from August 1st-15th, with an opening reception on Saturday, August 2nd.

Curated by Christina Zhang, Pensive States explores a deeply contemplative corner of the visual sphere. The artists in Pensive States seek to eliminate the boundaries of memory, history and geography in order to make a state of true contemplation possible. The works span a dynamic assortment of stylistic and thematic conclusions that are linked by their reflective nature. Each artist utilizes Pensive States as a forum to display the conclusion of a journey that begins with their imagination and ends with a poetic act of expression.

Pure art springs from a meditative state of mind. As a process, it brings wakefulness and awareness to the creative and viewing processes through the integration of contemplation and meditation. Pensive States brings together artists whose work is intent on achieving a better understanding of spiritual and aesthetic enrichment by opening innovative and thought provoking new dialogues up to the viewer.

Executed through a dynamic visual language, the exhibition is structured upon the idea of pictorial clarity as the elimination of all obstacles between the artist and the idea, and between the idea and the observer. By paying close attention to the transitional works of each artist, Zhang constructs an exhibition of effortless compositions, luminous color and passionate ideas—all of which are found through each artists own experimentations with everything from Realism and Surrealism, to Portraiture and Landscape.

Guillermo Riveros has this to say about his ongoing series, called “Golden Age”:

In my work I explore, through self-portraits, the ideas and discourses surrounding the construction of sexual identities and their representations. In this new series, entitled “Golden Age,” I introduce new devices to my previous technique; the mask to accomplish the anonymity of my subjects, but the clear signal of performativity. The mask allows my characters to inhabit new bodies that serve as an extension of my conceptualized self. These characters inhabit a utopian world of faceless fantastical hybrid sexual identities. Using 60’s horror B-movies as reference for compositions, I also intend to add an additional layer of dramatics to underline the notion of performativity(visible in both the photos and the identities they reference). The use of exteriors intends to speak about a hybrid cross between “the real”/the fantasy, also displayed in the color treatment of the images.

Opening
Saturday, August 2, 2008
6:00pm – 8:00pm
The Broadway Gallery
473 Broadway, 7th floor
New York, NY

[image by Guillermo Riveros]

Alumni Update: Louisa Bertman (’92)

Illustration Alumni, Illustration Industry, Interviews, News, , , , , ,

From the Illustration Inbox, we’ve got some news about Louisa Bertman (’92):

Louisa Bertman is honored to be 1 of 12 artists chosen to illustrate a page for the upcoming 2009 NPR Calendar. While painting Click and Clack, 2 large portraits were born as an offshoot of the actual NPR Illustration.  Check out the portraits as well as her interview with those crazy Car Talk Guys!  They’ve listed her this week under “Links We LIke” from their homepage.

Thanks for passing along the good word, Louisa, and congratulations!