Franklin Furnace’s Goings On
November 26, 2003
CONTENTS:
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1. Kiki Smith, FF Alumn, at MOMAQns, December 5, 2003-March 8, 2004
2. Sawad Brooks, FF Alumn, finalist of the Ground Zero Memorial Competition.
3. Stephanie Brody-Lederman, FF Alumn, at Kentler, Red Hook, Brooklyn, thru Dec. 28
4. Nora York, FF Alumn, at Makor, December 10, 8 pm
5. Reverend Billy, FF Alumn, new book reviewed in the New York Times, and Buy Nothing Day, November 28
6. Grupo 609, FF Fundwinners 2003, in the Sunday New York Times.
7. correction on last week’s listing about Mimi Smith, FF Alumn.
8. Yoav Gal, FF Alumn, on Brooklyn Cable Television, November 28, 9 pm
9. Elizabeth Cohen and Michael Talley, FF Alumns, at Collaborative Concepts, Beacon, NY thru February 2, 2004
10. Penny Arcade, at Ars Nova, Manhattan, December 5, 6, 8 pm
11. Charles Dennis, FF Alumn, new film screening, Dance Theater Workshop, Dec. 1
12. Susan Leopold, FF Alumn, at Bronfman Center Gallery, opening December 4
13. Dorit Cypis, FF Alumn, at Noga Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel, Dec. 5-31, 2003
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1. Kiki Smith, FF Alumn, at MOMAQns, December 5, 2003-March 8, 2004
Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things
at The Museum of Modern Art
On view from December 5, 2003-March 8, 2004
MOMAQns
33rd St. at Queens Boulevard
Long Island City
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2. Sawad Brooks, FF Alumn, finalist of the Ground Zero Memorial Competition.
Sawad Brooks, cyberartist who served in 1998 on Franklin Furnace’s peer review selection panel is one of the finalists of the Ground Zero Memorial competition. His submission, in collaboration with German-born architects Gisela Baurmann and Jonas Coersmeier, is for “Passages of Light: The Memorial Cloud.”
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3. Stephanie Brody-Lederman, FF Alumn, at Kentler, Red Hook, Brooklyn, thru Dec. 28
Beyond The Page:
3-D And The Artist’S Book
Kentler International Drawing Space
353 Van Brunt Street
(Red Hook), Brooklyn
New York
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, November 20, 6-9PM
ARTIST TALK: Saturday, December 6, 3pm
GALLERY HOURS: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 12-5pm
November 20 – December 28th, 2003
In conjunction with an exhibition in the Balcony Cases
Brooklyn Public Library
Grand Army Plaza
Artist’s Books is a small but growing visual medium. These ten artists express their interest in this form beyond the emphasis of the visual over the literary aspect, and explore the sculptural as well. A concurrent exhibition at Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza will showcase the work of each of the artists individually. An Artist Talk is scheduled for
December 6th at 3pm at the Kentler.
Participating Artists:
Sarah Bodman
Stephanie Brody-Lederman
Judy Hoffman
David Horton
Ed Hutchins
Helen Levin
Debbie Officer
Maddy Rosenberg
Miriam Schaer
Hubert Sommerauer
Curator: Maddy Rosenberg
63 Tiffany Place #407 / Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-797-1005 / maddrose@hotmail.com
For more information contact:
Florence Neal, Director
Kentler International Drawing Space
353 Van Brunt Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-875-2098
info@kentlergallery.org
http://www.kentlergallery.org
DIRECTIONS: F or A TRAIN to Jay St., Borough Hall. Outside take the B-61 BUS to Red Hook, stops in front of the gallery between Wolcott and Dikeman St. / B77 BUS from 9th St and 5th Ave., Brooklyn / BY CAR: Take the BQE south to Atlantic Ave.exit, left on Columbia St., right on Degraw, left onto Van Brunt, 12 blocks, on the left after PS 15 school yard.
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4. Nora York, FF Alumn, at Makor, December 10, 8 pm
Nora York, FF Alumn, to perform POWER/PLAY: All Work and No Play
Wednesday December 10 — showtime 8pm
MAKOR
35 W 67th Street
New York, NY
Between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue
“War, Inequality and the abuse of authority are also on Nora York’s mind these days; unlike most of us, though, this daring vocalist and conceptualist is able to turn her ruminations into fascinating musical explorations. Her latest “POWER/PLAY” uses Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” as its jumping off point; York is sure to take it to parts un-dreamed of. ” — The New Yorker Magazine–
Nora York
Claire Daly baritone Sax
Dave Hofstra bass
Jamie Lawrence Piano
Sherryl Marshall voice
Allison Miller drums
Steve Tarshis guitar
Singer/composer NORA YORK’s material is shaped from jazz, pop, classical, and folk music motifs, comprising both straight-ahead songs and “morphed suites” using overlay and sound collage. Her newest song cycle, POWER/PLAY: All Work & No Play, unravels a number of the diverse threads running through contemporary American culture — addressing the confusions that abound in our shared relationship to power, threat and social liberty. The work was awarded a composers commission by the New York State Council on the Arts.
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5. Reverend Billy, FF Alumn, new book reviewed in the New York Times, and Buy Nothing Day, November 28
On Sunday, November 23rd, 2003, The New York Times printed the following story:
WHAT SHOULD I DO IF REVEREND BILLY IS IN MY STORE?
By Bill Talen
The New Press, $22.95.
REVEREND BILLY is a character devised by Bill Talen, an actor turned activist who makes political theater in the tradition of Lenny Bruce and Peter Schumann (the frontman and inventor of the Bread and Puppet Theater). His bugbears are consumerism and globalism, in particular as displayed by the Disney stores and Starbucks, which he blames for destroying the two neighborhoods he loved best in New York City: Times Square and the strip of Lafayette Street that runs from Houston Street to Astor Place. And he has a thing about supermodels on billboards.
In a white tux saved from his cater-waiter days, a $5 collar and hair reaching for the sky like Conway Twitty’s, Reverend Billy began as an improvisational lark, smack in front of the Disney store on West 42nd Street. He refined his act into a full-blown revue called “The Church of Stop-Shopping,” picking up tips from the antiglobalists in groups like Direct Action Network and along the way gathering comrades, including students from the New School, where Mr. Talen was an artist in residence three years ago.
Now, he is something of a local hero, a kind of Adam Purple with a voice, whose big-corporation stuff hasn’t led to much except for a cautionary memo circulated at Starbucks that gave him the title for this memoir-manifesto.
Still, after five-plus years, Mr. Talen has a bit of a legacy: a partial success in saving the Poe House on East Third Street, which New York University almost tore down to build its new student center. I say partial because the compromise reached between neighborhood groups like Mr. Talen’s and N.Y.U. entails something of a sleight of hand. The building is still there, sort of: it has been stripped of its brick facade and encased by the student center like the proverbial bug in amber.
A more enduring legacy is the continued tenacity of the Reverend Billy character, as a poignant finger in the dam against what he calls the mild pleasantness of shopping. It takes no small measure of courage to make a nuisance of yourself for something you believe in. In the character’s early days, all alone in Times Square, Mr. Talen describes a heart-sinking moment that occurred in mid-rant, when a passer-by cut him short: “Lighten up, Reverend. I’m just buying a toy for my sister’s kid.” -end NY Times story.
and
Buy Nothing Day(s) with Rev Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
When: 1pm, Friday, 11/28/2003
Where: In Front of the Plaza Hotel (5th Ave at Central Park South)
Travel: N, R, W to 5th ave/59th st. 4, 5, 6 to 59th st. E, V to 5th ave/5rd st.
Cost: Very, very free.
Contact: Michael ONeil, 917-825-3562 Michael@revbilly.com
Join Reverend Billy’s Stop Shopping, Buy Nothing Day Festivities: Music, in-store performances, booty shaking, and Not-Buying holiday mischief-making at numerous corporate flagships along Fifth Avenue. Fun for the whole post-consumer family. Disguise yourself as a shopper, but fill that Louis Vuitton bag with kazoos, tambourines and anti-consumer polemical literature.
After the rally, Reverend Billy will travel through the night to bring the Not-Buying Spirit to our friends in London!
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6. Grupo 609, FF Fundwinners 2003, in the Sunday New York Times.
On Sunday, November 23rd, 2003, The New York Times printed a story by Maria Finn entitled Visions of Dollars Dance Before Cuban Artists’ Eyes. Below is an excerpt that discusses Grupo 609, winners of a Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art award for 2003-2004
“At another exhibition apart from the biennial, on a beach near the burned-out shell of Casino de Santa Fe, Grupo 609, a collective of young women named for the dorm room they once shared at the institute, climbed into a shallow river under a low concrete bridge. With musicians accompanying them from shore, they performed a puppet show from behind a tarp. The puppets danced to whistling, grunting, hissing and snoring noises that echoed from under the bridge. In this way, Grupo 609 mocked and condemned machismo in Cuban society.”
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7. correction on last week’s listing about Mimi Smith, FF Alumn.
correction: Mimi Smith’s work is the subject of a series of postcards being mailed by Bound & Unbound as “Mailed Exhibition #1”. It is not being formally exhibited.
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8. Yoav Gal, FF Alumn, on Brooklyn Cable Television, November 28, 9 pm
Hi friends and neighbors,
If you live in Brooklyn (or know someone who does) and have cable connection (or know someone who does), please tune in to videOpera #3 on BCAT. Here’s the info:
videOpera #3 will air on Friday 11/28, 9:00 PM in Brooklyn only, on Time Warner channel 34 and Cablevision channel 67.
For additional information or comments please e-mail videopera@earthlink.net
Thanks, enjoy,
Yoav
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9. Elizabeth Cohen and Michael Talley, FF Alumns, at Collaborative Concepts, Beacon, NY thru February 2, 2004
Elizabeth Cohen and Michael Talley, FF Alumns, are exhibiting their work as part of The Luminous Image exhibition at Collaborative Concepts Gallery, 348 Main Street, Beacon NY, from November 22, 2003 through February 2, 2004. The gallery is open Thursday through Monday, 12 – 5 pm. The opening reception is Saturday, November 22, 5 – 8 pm.
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10. Penny Arcade, at Ars Nova, Manhattan, December 5, 6, 8 pm
Penny will perform her new show REBELLION CABARET at the Ars Nova Theater in midtown Manhattan on Friday-Saturday December 5-6. 511 West 54th St, btw 10th & 11th Aves. 8 pm Friday & Saturday (tix $12), and a late show Saturday, 10 pm (tix $10). 212-489-9800
Penny Arcade is back in New York after spreading her NEW YORK VALUES to Europe, Ireland and Texas. On December 5 & 6, Ars Nova, New York’s newest and most vital theater, hosts Penny Arcade’s antidote to denatured, sterile and homogenized performance, as she and brilliant singer/songwriter Chris Rael, the mastermind of one New York’s most enduring bands, Church Of Betty, join forces to bring you REBELLION CABARET, a hilarious and often edgy walk through the current landscape of culture and politics. The combined forces of Arcade and Rael make a powerful impact. Arcade’s insightful and hysterically funny monologues and one liners, delivered in her internationally famous style, combust with Rael’s sophisticated, topical lyrics, memorable arrangements and, quite simply, one of the best voices in contemporary pop. Never before has Rael’s vocal, melodic and lyrical power been more evident than in this collaboration, highlighted in the theatricalized context of Penny Arcade’s monologues and segues.
The show is loaded with content about how we live and think today. Sexual and identity politics, hegemony and the media, and the future of Western Civilization are de-boned and investigated. This show tears away the veil from marketed rebellion, celebrity culture, bourgeoisie bohemia, The Vagina Monologues, and the new patriotism.
Penny Arcade continues to redefine theatre, performance, and political standup comedy with an exciting sound score that will have you rocking in your seat. Chris Rael will make you remember why anyone, anywhere, ever cared about rock and roll.
“Jagged, unexpected, mesmerizing. An unusually astute, take no prisoners feminist comedian.” – Village Voice
“Chris Rael has consistently blended rock and roll and Indian music better than any other western guitar guy ever!” Village Voice
“Hot and hysterically funny!” – New York Post
“Penny Arcade is provocative,intellectually stimulating,perceptive and hilariously funny! *****” – Edinburgh List
Chris Rael is a purveyors of urban psychedelia, with a voice sweeter than
Prince. Magnet Magazine,
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11. Charles Dennis, FF Alumn, new film screening, Dance Theater Workshop, Dec. 1
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
You are invited to attend a screening of my film “Homecoming” which I have been working on for the past three and a half years. Attached is the postcard for the film.
A preview (30 minute) version of “Homecoming – Celebrating 20 Years of Dance at P.S. 122” will be shown this Monday, December 1 at DTW, 219 West 19th Street at 7 pm as part of their “Captured – a videodance series”. For more info go to the dtw web page: http://www.dtw.org/2003fall/captured.htm
If you can’t make the screening at DTW the premier of the full film will be on Sunday February 29, 2004 at P.S. 122, 150 First Avenue, NYC 10009 at 5 pm. An email will also go out before that event. best wishes, Charles
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12. Susan Leopold, FF Alumn, at Bronfman Center Gallery, opening December 4
Thursday, december 4, 2003 [6:00 pm]
Gallery Opening: “Uncharted Perspectives: Recent Works by Susan Leopold”
Join us from 6PM-8PM for the Gallery Opening of “Uncharted Perspectives: Recent Works by Susan Leopold.” Leopold’s work explores the shifting nature of perception and how memory transforms our experience of space. The exhibition will be on display from Decemebr 4, 2003 to February 1, 2004.
The Bronfman Center Gallery
7 E. 10th Street NY, NY
Gallery Hours: Mon -Thur 10 -10 pm, Sun 10 – 10 pm
If you have any questions or would like to schedule a private showing, please contact Robert J. Saferstein, Gallery Director .
Robert J. Saferstein
Email: rjs286@nyu.edu
The Bronfman Center Gallery
7 E. 10th Street NY, NY
Gallery Hours: Mon -Thur 10 -10 pm, Sun 10 – 10 pm
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13. Dorit Cypis, FF Alumn, at Noga Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel, Dec. 5-31, 2003
Liberty (leading the people),
Noga Gallery
Tel Aviv, Israel
December 5 – 31, 2003
Liberty (leading the people), by Dorit Cypis, borrows elements from her recent installation The Sound of Time, (Optica Gallery, Montreal, Canada, 2003), extending them to adapt to the current environment of Noga Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Liberty (leading the people), a reflection on Eugene Delacroix’s romantic/classical painting Liberty Leading the People, 1830, is a poetic evocation of longing, loss and mourning — all inner emotions associated with unrequited desire for freedom, a “freedom” seemingly within reach and inevitably beyond our reach. It is a desire which propels human beings no matter what our cultural heritage, no matter what our gender, class and race lines.
At Noga, all the elements placed in the gallery, and including architecture and viewers, reference each other. Two images, one still, the other in movement, and a mirror on the floor all share the same proportions. The still image, a photograph cut out from the Los Angeles Times in 2001, at the beginning of the current Intifada, has been transformed to destabilize its political intention into one evoking a personal memory of mythological proportions. Whose memory? Whose history? The image in movement, a video projection of curtains caught in a fierce gale negotiating the containment of a window frame, is relentless in its physicality, bodyfull in its movement and motivation to be free. The curtains hang in a hotel room, Tel Aviv, Israel. The mirror, reflecting there where it is not, catches dislocated glances of everything present within the architectural space of the gallery. These glances, which are seen only by the viewer’s moving body, make the viewer complicit in the act of looking.
While in Israel, as compliment to her exhibition at Noga Gallery, Cypis will be spending time observing the conciliation strategies at play in the Palestinian/Israeli village of Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam, a village developed in 1978 to promote peace. These concurrent activities will inform the future expansion of Liberty (leading the people) for the upcoming exhibition Imagine a Nation, 2004, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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~~end~~
Goings On are compiled weekly by Harley Spiller
Click http://www.franklinfurnace.org/goings_on.html
to visit ‘This Month’s World Wide Events’.
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