This Week's Must-See Art Events: Beyond the Gallery
by Whitney Kimball on April 1, 2013 Events
Can't Stop Rock Lobster (Part One, "Can't Stop") from Merkx&Gwynne on Vimeo. Merkx&Gwynne has work in CKTV Karaoke Party at BAM.
This week's art events support Jerry Saltz's recent theory that the gallery show is dead. Our picks include karaoke, net art, a trip to Venice, a show on the white cube, and two separate nods to 1920s film screenings.
Film Screenings: The Blue Balcony, Le Petit Versailles
In New York, spring shepherds the arrival of outdoor screenings. Through this week, the Lower East Side garden and art oasis Le Petit Versailles is hosting immersive screening experiences in "The Blue Balcony," a structure built by the artist group et al, intended to evoke atmospheric movie palaces of the 1920's. Visitors won't actually watch the movies, but will listen to disembodied soundtracks corresponding to mood lighting. It sounds fun and, well, sexy!
Daily, starting at 7:45
Monday, April 1st
Opening: F.A.T. GOLD, Eyebeam
319 Scholes star curator, Lindsay Howard, presents a five-year retrospective of F.A.T. (Free Art and Technology) Lab, a collective of artists and hackers, and a hub for free internet advocacy. If you're into new media, you'll be here. If not, this'll be a pretty good primer for the interventions genre of net art, and you can check out "Webcam Venus" for a taste of what this will look like.
7-9 PM, Eyebeam, 540 West 21st Street, Chelsea
Wednesday, April 3rd
Performance, CKTV Karaoke Party, BAM
Cleopatra's has teamed up with artist Chris Rice to expand a program of karaoke videos by artists called "CKTV." Having now commissioned upwards of seventy videos, they're staging an immersive exhibition at BAM and are, of course, hosting a karaoke party with beer to kick things off.
As a premise, karaoke has allowed curators to showcase a range of artists, for example, people who work with sound (NEW HUMANS), music videos (Merkx and Gwynne), metal (Liturgy's Hunter Hunt-Hendrix), and hot girls (Richard Kern). Something for everyone.
Wednesday: 8 PM-12 AM, Fishman Space at the BAM Richard B. Fisher Building
321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Exhibition through May 10th: Leonard Natman Room at the BAM Peter Jay Sharp Building
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Screening: Studio des Ursulines: January 21, 1926, Light Industry
In another nod to 1920's movie theaters, Light Industry will recreate the program for the opening night of the storied Paris avant-garde cinema Studio des Ursulines. Plus, it's always more fun to watch silent films on a projector with other people; they're presenting a re-edited version of René Clair and Francis Picabia's Dada film "Entr'acte" (1925), and G.W. Pabst's Weimar "Joyless Street" (1924), and Perret's comedy "Léonce cinématographiste" (1913).
Box office opens at 7 PM
155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn NY, 11222
Chelsea Openings
Several shows open in Chelsea on Thursday night between 18th and 28th streets between 6 and 8 PM.
On 25th street, Marlborough's holding a show about breaking the conventions of the white cube (re: Saltz) called "The Wall." We're not exactly sure how painters like Clive Smith are doing that, but we're glad to see a show there including emerging artists like Anna Plesset and Brendan Lynch. Marlborough also opens their first solo show of Andrew Kuo's schematic paintings.
At Paul Kasmin, on 515 West 27th Street, Kenny Scharf (creator of Squirtz) opens a show of Lisa Frank-style paint blobs.
Thursday – Sunday
Fair: AIPAD, the Park Avenue Armory
Boring, but huge: the Association of International Photography Art Dealers presents its giant annual exhibition of leading galleries showcasing museum-quality photographs.
Thurs – Sat 11AM – 7 PM
Sunday: 11AM – 6 PM
Through April 8th
Casting Call: New Lavoro
Want to be in the Venice Biennale, but you're broke? Then Dora Budor wants you for her artist reality show competition (judged by "well-known artists"), to be filmed over a couple of weeks in April and presented in Palazzo Peckham in Venice. From the sound of it, you don't get paid for your participation in the show, but the winning contestant gets an all-expense-paid trip to the Biennale.
Tagged as: 1926, AIPAD, bam, CKTV Karaoke Party, Dora Budor, et al, eyebeam, F.A.T. GOLD, Kenny Scharf, Le Petit Versailles, Light Industry, Merkx&Gwynne, New Lavoro, park avenue armory, paul kasmin, Rock Lobster, Studio des Ursulines: January 21, The Blue Balcony, The Wall
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