All posts by amt

Quick Hit: “Street Language” at Woodward Gallery

An interesting show opens up at Woodward Gallery this weekend. Here’s a snippet from the official press release:

Woodward Gallery is proud to open the Spring season by introducing Artists Matt Siren and Darkcloud. “Street Language” will transpose two respected street artists with a select group of their peers to a gallery setting for the first time. Representing a true renaissance in urban art, these emerging artists surface from a subculture ruled by self-directed codes and complicated by its delight in youthful mayhem. They tag with their icons consuming the urban landscape with colorful enthusiasm; reveling in an ability to seep into and subvert the hyperkinetic visual surroundings most passersby take for granted.

Utilizing their individualized lexicons, Matt Siren and Darkcloud bring their recognizable icons indoors with edition prints on paper and original paintings on metal signs or wood. Born of media saturation, these icons speak of cartoons, video games, toys, and a generation aware of the potency of a powerfully branded image – and its repetition.

Connected through the rapid waves of text messaging, blogs, and websites these urban artists are now able to connect internationally with their peers creating a shifting social network. Their organized approach to a self-guided movement, so prominent in user-generated wiki-culture, is mirrored in each artist’s unique attempt to edit the urban landscape. Commenting on today, their optic, codified language is finally united to speak on the exhibition walls of Woodward.

Head over on Saturday, May 10th, 6-8pm, for the opening reception of this exciting cultural debut!

Matt Siren & Darkcloud: Street Language May 10 – Jun 28, 2008
133 Eldridge Street (Between Broome and Delancey) New York, NY 10002

[images t-b: darkcloud, matt siren]

Don’t Paint with Your Teeth featuring a TON of Illustration students

Move 16: Don’t Paint With Your Teeth
A Group Show of blue ballpoint pen, pencil and Sharpie drawings
Curated by Rich Jacobs
May 9th – June 8th 2008
Opening Reception Friday May 9th 2008 7 – 10pm

Move 16: Don’t Paint Your Teeth, marks the 2nd group drawing show at Cinders curated by artist Rich Jacobs. The guidelines for this one: Make a drawing using either ballpoint pen, pencil, or sharpie on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of white paper. This show brings art back to its most basic and raw form of drawing and with materials that everyone has access to. This DIY creative spirit runs throughout the show, which includes a diverse array of artists that spans several generations from around the globe. There will be a limited edition zine catalogue made to go along with the show in the very near future!

Featuring work by Mark Gonzales, Matt Leines, Chris Shary, Caroline Hwang, Rachel Sumpter, Rich Jacobs, Chris Mendoza, Neckface, Eric White, Suzanne Sattler, Erika Borboa, Brian Chippendale, Diane Barcelowsky, Maya Hayuk, David Ellis, Jeff Ladouceur, Theo Ellsworth, Hisham Bharoocha, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, Logan MacDonald, Allyson Mellberg, Justin Williams, Garry Davis, Irene Cho, Davd Aron, James Kirkpatrick, Jojo Li, Jordin Isip, Melinda Beck,Tim Kerr,Taylor Mckimens, Daniel Higgs, Ryan and Casey Gallagher, John Orth, Sto, Daniel Davidson, Pam Morris-Gallagher, Phil Franklin, Christine Shields, Andrew Scott, Pat Delaney, Mike Boul, Moses, Dennis and Loreto Remsing, Kelie Bowman, Kate Hurowitz, Carl Dunn, Oliver Rosenberg, Oliver Harkness, Rodger Bridges, Tod Swank, Olivia Shoa, Bill and Christopher Sprague, Kostas Seremetis, Zachary Rossman, Matthew Thurber, Rebecca Bird, Eric Shaw, Morgan Goodwin Acheson, WoonHyae Bae, Lindsey Balbierz, Noel Chanyungco, Arlette Espaillat, Nicholas Gannon, Florence Gidez, Rich Guzman, Seulki Kim, Sae-am Lee, Shanna Mahan, Yulia Makarova, Elizabeth Meluch, Ray Ray Mitrano, Cassie Ramone, Liz Riccardi, Jeremy Schlangen, Peter Sriployrung, Nicholas Sultana, Emmanuel Tavares, Franklin Valdez, Misaki Kawai, James Gallagher.

(fancy color code = Illustration Faculty, Illustration Alum, Current Illustration Students)

Cinders Gallery
103 Havemeyer st.
Btwn Hope and Grand St.
Williamsburg Brooklyn
718-388-2311
http://www.cindersgallery.com

[images l-r: Shanna Mahan, Lindsey Balbierz, Florence Gidez]

Quick Hit: MAC Cosmetics student competition

ARTCO is a New York based company founded by Cary Leitzes that pairs artists with corporations for creative collaborations. They do everything from product design to in store installations and deal in the space where culture and commerce converge.

Click here for a PDF that tells all about their MAC Cosmetics student competition to design/create a window design for their 2008 holiday collection. Prize money and wonderful high profile exposure.

Mark Your Calendar: Recent Works at Tres Gallery featuring Ronnie Lawlor

Illustration Alum and Adjunct Faculty Ronnie Lawlor, in conjunction with Margaret Hurst and Eddie Pena (both are also Parsons alums and faculty members), is mounting a show at Tres Gallery. Recent works by all three artists will be on view. Make sure to drop by!

Parsons Illustration BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition

Join us for the Parsons Illustration
BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition!

Exhibition on view: May 6th-May 10th, 2008

Opening Celebration: May 7th, 2008 6-8 p.m.

Chelsea Art Museum

556 West 22nd Street

New York, NY

[top image: lindsey balbierz; bottom image: sae-am lee]

Electric Windows in Beacon, May 17th-18th!

ELECTRIC WINDOWS
BEACON, NY
May 17th-18th

24 street artists will converge in Beacon, NY from May 17th to May 18th to create live artwork and have their work installed on the exterior of a 19th century factory building. Electric Windows draws its name from the former electric blanket factory at the foot of Mount Beacon that will act as the backdrop for the event. E.W. turns the idea of a gallery inside out using the large industrial windows as frames for each artists work. Usually street art is not so easily contained in a rectangle but this installation ingeniously bridges the gap between indoor and outdoor art both inverting and subverting the concept of the art gallery. Each of the 24 pieces will be approximately 8 ft x 12 ft. The installation will be on display for 12 months.

Electric Windows coincides with the fifth anniversary of DIA:Beacon and Sitelines, a Hudson Valley arts fair. The project will be documented from the beginning of the weekend through completion of the installation for possible future publication.

There will be a companion show of Electric Windows artists at the Open Space gallery (owned by Adjunct Illustration Faculty Dan Weise!). Featured artists include Ron English (NYC), Above (San Francisco), Ripo (Barcelona), Lady Pink (NYC), Michael De Feo (NYC), Jim Darling/Tina Andersen (Los Angeles), Rick Price (Beacon), Peripheral Media Projects (Brooklyn) and Dan Funderburgh (Brooklyn) and many more…

Organizers will also be flying in DJs for the latest version of Next Step, a live art and dance party that has been gaining ground as the place for locals and expats from Brooklyn and Manhattan alike.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:

If you are interested in volunteering to help out with various odd jobs, please contact Dan Weise as soon as possible! Beacon is easily accessible by train from New York City, so don’t let the commute frighten you off. This is a great opportunity to be involved in a dynamic project.

This weekend should be an unprecedented convergence of the arts from live street art to high end museum pieces that will have heads turning to Beacon.

Electric Windows Beacon
1 East Main Street
Beacon, New York
May 17th-18th

Howard Zinn’s illustrated “A People’s History of the American Empire”

Historian and activist Howard Zinn, working with comic artist Mike Konopacki, has produced an illustrated book called A People’s History of the American Empire. Here’s an excerpt from the publisher’s write-up:

Adapted from the bestselling grassroots history of the United States, the story of America in the world, told in comics form.

Since its landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million copies, become required classroom reading throughout the country, and been turned into an acclaimed play. More than a successful book, A People’s History triggered a revolution in the way history is told, displacing the official versions with their emphasis on great men in high places to chronicle events as they were lived, from the bottom up.

Now Howard Zinn, historian Paul Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki have collaborated to retell, in vibrant comics form, a most immediate and relevant chapter of A People’s History: the centuries-long story of America’s actions in the world. Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of 9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I, Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution. The book also follows the story of Zinn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, from his childhood in the Brooklyn slums to his role as one of America’s leading historians.

Shifting from world-shattering events to one family’s small revolutions, A People’s History of American Empire presents the classic ground-level history of America in a new form.

Grab your copy here!

Bonus: Here’s a short film called “Empire or Humanity?: What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me about the American Empire” by Howard Zinn and narrated by Viggo Mortensen.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg&hl=en]

Extra Special Bonus: This weekend, Howard Zinn and Mike Konopacki will be appearing at Cooper Union to talk about the book.

Parsons and Jazz students collaborate on “Visual Music Works”

“Dreamers Night” 
From The Team Of:
Christine Young, Myeong Jae Lee And Martin Isenberg

Animation students from Parsons The New School for Design and composers from The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music will take the stage on Sunday, May 4, to present “visual music works,” which bring music and animation together in new and compelling ways. The event marks the culmination of the university’s first studio course in jazz and animation, in which students from the two schools worked together at a high level of collaboration to create original work.

The class, called Jazz and Animation, is taught by Parsons faculty member Ben Katchor, an award-winning and widely published illustrator, and Parsons and Jazz faculty member Ernesto Klar, a media and sound artist whose work was recently featured at the PULSE Contemporary Art Fair in New York. Among the works to be presented are an animated ecosystem that changes and grows in response to a musical score; a piece that brings to life children’s dreams, with the music and animation depicting the movement from consciousness to unconsciousness; and a performance in which the musicians are transformed into on-screen avatars who act out virtual stories through the music played onstage.

“From Wassily Kandinsky to Oskar Fischinger, artists have long been exploring the relationship between image and sound,” said Klar. “Today’s technology brings the work of visual artists and musicians to a whole new level, and over the past several months our students have experimented with a variety of analog and digital technologies to create innovative audiovisual works.”

The course harks back to founding decades of The New School, when it was a major center for modernist visual and performing arts. Artists such as Martha Graham and John Cage resided at the school and worked in egalitarian, collaborative ways, challenging traditional divisions between the arts. Jazz and Animation reflects the direction of the university today as it strives to weave together arts disciplines.

The performance will take place at 4:00 p.m. in the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor. It is free and open to the public.

Alumni Bulletin: News from Illustration Grads

Larry Roibal (’82) recently had his piece “Sunday Morning” accepted for the Communication Arts Illustration Competition. Larry’s unique style was also highlighted by the fine folks over at Drawn a couple of weeks ago.  See more of Larry’s work at his website. Congrats!

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Alum Chris Roth has been creating like crazy, including tons of animations for CBS (like this!), a Spiderman stained-glass window in honor of legendary artist Stan Lee, and this great spot for Channel Frederator (the first piece is his!):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDNEGAJfHiU&hl=en]

See more of Chris’s work at his website. Keep up the great work, Chris!

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Alum Angie Mason recently had her work included in the Fusion 5 Festival, which is an amazing new art festival put together by Strychnin Gallery Owner Yasha Young and Hotel 3.14’s creative director Dani Morla.

The artists included in this event were:

Bijou (France), Diva (Spain), David Hochbaum (USA),
Angie Mason (USA),Till Krautkraemer (USA),
Manuel Cortez & Philipp Baben (Germany), Brian Horton (USA),
Chichi Menendez (Australia), Natalie Shau (Lithuania),
Chris von Steiner (France), Mark Verhaagen (Netherlands)
David Stoupakis (USA), Daniel van Nes (Netherlands),
BORIS + NATASCHA (Germany & Australia), Mkan (France),
Virginie Ropars (France), Ansgar Noeth (Germany),
Matthew Bone (USA), Mimi S. (Germany),
Kristen Ferrell (USA), Oksana Badrak (GUS),
Mijn Schatje (France)

Angie also posted images up also at her flickr site and had this to say about her experience:

It was a great event where each artist was given a room/suite that matched their art (no two rooms are a like at this very unique hotel) and the artists had to fill the space with their work making the room their own and then have it viewed during the opening party exhibits and public openings. There was wonderful music and art and press and an ever flowing amount of absolute vodka since they were one of the main sponsors.

Thanks for sharing the news, Angie!