efa - Never Late than Better

efa Project Space
323 West 39th Street
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10018

Starts in 2 days
At EFA Project Space
Media: Painting, Installation, Video installation

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On the centennial anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto, "Never Late than Better" (Trong Gia Nguyen, curator) contends with the questionable boundaries of space, time, and reality. Re-appraising the past and re-fashioning the present, the exhibition foregrounds a “bizarro universe” that counters the time-honored day-to-days of war, speed, and misogyny that F.T. Marinetti forecast in the Manifesto, published in Le Figaro in 1909. he Futurist Manifesto Is Whenever, a supplementary guide, will evolve with the duration of the show. Altering the traditional audio-tape guide, a selection of curators, critics, artists, and musicians will walk through the show before it opens and record their immediate responses, speaking into an old-fashioned cassette recorder. Each side of the tape will contain the voice of a different ‘critic.’ The audio-guides will be available for checking out, and viewers themselves are also encouraged to record their own take on the show, which will be left behind for subsequent viewers. At the exhibition’s conclusion, the collection of tapes will together form the ‘exhibition catalogue.’nyartbeat.com

Enough with the introduction. It was a great opening with a great amount of people coming to see the new works. Especially when they are serving free beer bottles.


The crowd


The bartender serving free beers


The Beer


Marc Ganzglass, Trojan Horse Idea, 2008, Ink jet Print, 72x40


Mike Womack, 8 Bit Blip, 2008, Cinder Block, Motor, Light, Steel, Aluminum, Plastic, Mirror




Christopher Chiappa, Windshield Wiper 2005-2008 Volvo station wagon rear windshield wiper and mechanism with a 13.8 volt transformer 35x17 1/2 inches


Peter Belyi, 15 Watts, 2008, Welded metal and mized media


Laura Nova, Wailing Wall, 2009, Installation/Tissue Boxes, 7x2 1/2 feet



David Maroto, Disillusion, Work in Progress, Installation/Boardgame, mixed media,
4x15 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches

Happy Trees

Last Thursday, I went to a Bob Ross tribute at Gallery Bar located in lower Eastside by Delancey. The place started at 8pm and I was there a little bit early and boy, it was packed. There was a lady in the front that was teaching us how to paint like Bob Ross - quick and happy trees. I love the vibe especially I didn't know there were people that appreciate Bob Ross like I do. I grew watching his show when I was 5 years old. I wanted to be an artist because of him. He was my imspiration and I was happy to be there.


Beginning stage

Middle stage

After 15 mins, she was done

Andrew Wyeth, 'Christina's World' painter, dies

(CNN) -- Andrew Wyeth, the American painter perhaps best known for his painting of a young woman in a field, "Christina's World," has died, according to an official with the Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania.


Andrew Wyeth received the National Medal of Arts from President Bush in November 2007.

Wyeth, 91, died in his sleep Thursday night at his home near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to Lora Englehart, public relations coordinator for the museum.

The acclaimed artist painted landscapes and figure subjects and worked mostly in tempera and watercolor.

He was widely celebrated inside and outside of the art world. President John F. Kennedy awarded him a Presidential Freedom Award and President Richard Nixon held a dinner and a private exhibition at the White House, according to a biography on the Ask/Art Web site.

Wyeth, who lived in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Maine, "has been enormously popular and critically acclaimed since his first one-man show in 1937," according to a biography in InfoPlease.

His main subjects were the places and people of Chadds Ford and Cushing, Maine.

"Christina's World," painted in 1948, shows a disabled Maine neighbor who drags herself through a field toward her house in the distance. The painting, displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has been regarded as Wyeth's most popular.

"His 'Helga' pictures, a large group of intimate portraits of a neighbor, painted over many years, were first shown publicly in 1986," the InfoPlease biography says. Those were painted in Pennsylvania.

Wyeth, the youngest child of painter N.C. Wyeth, formally studied art with his father as a teen, "drawing in charcoal and painting in oils, the media of choice for N.C. Wyeth. It was during the family's annual summer vacations in Port Clyde, Maine, that Andrew was able to experiment with other media to find his own artistic voice," according to a biography in the Farnsworth Art Museum in Maine.

Halloween Special

...well 8 days later.

The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill
89 7th Ave S
(between S 7 Ave & Barrow St)
New York, NY 10014
http://thevillagepetstoreandcharcoalgrill.com



I went to the Village Pet Shore and Charcoal Grill to see what's all the hype was. Right when I got there, I encountered many visitors already flooded the area. It was right next to Sushi Samba, a over-priced Japanese restaurant in a trendy setting. In my notion, I thought it was a real petshop but to my realization it was an art show by Banksy. Saw moving hot dog, swimming fish sticks, chimpanzee watching money porn, little chick nuggets eating and more. It a small shop which takes a 360 turn to complete the tour. The displayment can be seen outside as well. It was a fun interesting experience. The show ended by October 31st.

Racking up for Bikers at Wall St

http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/bike_racks/index.php

TRUE GENIUS

David Byrne and the New York City Department of Transportation, in conjunction with New York art gallery PaceWildenstein, have unveiled nine unique bicycle racks designed by DB and installed in various locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. An avid bicyclist for almost 30 years, Byrne was invited to join the panel of jurors selected by the DOT to judge a design competition for outdoor and indoor bicycle racks. Inspired by the city's initiative, he submitted some original design ideas of his own named after specific locations and neighborhoods, which the DOT enthusiastically agreed to install for a period of 364 days.


Villager, 2008 (Location: LaGuardia Place)

Olde Time Square, 2008 (Location: 44th and 7th Ave)

The Wall Street (Location: Water St and Pearl St)

Ladies' miles (Between 5th Ave and 57th/ 58th in front of Bergdof)

The coffee cup (Location: Amsterdam between 110th and 111th St, near the Hungarian Pastry Shop)

The Chelsea (Location: 25th St between 10th and 11th, front of Pace Wildenstein Gallery)

The Moma (Location:53rd St , in front of Moma-of course)

The Hipster (Location: Bedford and North 6th Street, Williamsburg Brooklyn)

The Jersey (Location:9th Ave and 39th St)

Erin Patrice O' Brien's

Elizabeth, 15

Maria 18, with Kimberly and Summer

On Saturday, Fort Greene photographer Erin Patrice O'Brien unveiled her new exhibit at Brooklyn's Corridor Gallery. The images on display were not that of her normal clientele (she used to take portraits of celebrities), but of the young mothers living in New York. She told the Daily News, “I was interested in someone who never gets their story told as opposed to someone who always has the limelight."

Erin visited Bellevue Hospital in 2006 where he met the young girls from age 14-18, mostly from Mexico. This experiment gave him an understanding of their stories as a young pregnant girls and the struggle they dealt with.

This wasn't the limelight that Diablo Cody gave pregnant teens in Juno, these photographs put a different story on the statistics--teen mothers, from the ages of 14 to 18, spending most of their time home alone while their husbands work 70 hour weeks. The exhibit, titled Mamás Adolescentes: NYC 2006-2007, is on view through the 24th.

By Jen Carlson in Arts and Events www.gothamist.com

Shen Jing Dong

SHEN JINGDONG
Curated by Eric C. Shiner
On view from August 5, 2008
Reception: August 7, 2008 / 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
China Square
545 W. 25th Street
Chelsea Arts Tower 8th fl.







Do not think that I'm promoting communist. I rather slit my wrist than praise on China's communist. I love the style Shen Jing Dong. I love the playfulness that he created. The mix of ideological and consumerist subject matter definitively places Shen's work, alongside works by Takashi Murakami (How hot is that?)- in the post-pop period, attempting to digest the nation's transition into a consumer-driven society. His plastic toy characters have the reflections of the light that is pure genius. The smiles in the three panels of people with different ethnicities shows a connection in Yue Minjun's smily characters but less jovial. I'm happy that he has his one man show at this gallery since I was in awe of his work last year.

ChinaSquare is pleased to present SHEN JINGDONG: Hero, curated by Eric C. Shiner. The exhibit will be on view August 5th to 30th with an opening reception on Thursday, August 7th, from 6 to 8 pm. Born in Nanjing in 1965, Shen Jingdong received his masters degree from the Nanjing Institute of Arts in 1991. He was then conscripted to the Military Drama Troupe until 2007. Shen Jingdong's work taps into the vulnerability of the venerable by examining heroes of China's Cultural Revolution – most notably, members of the military. Serving in the military drama troupe for 16 years provided the artist ample exposure to military life and time to consider soldiers as sentient beings, rather than mere emblems of Communist thought. The plastic, manufactured soldiers Shen paints is in contrast to the observed humanity from his experience, but allows one to view these cultural icons as government play things gazing out with placid, unquestioning expressions. The mix of ideological and consumerist subject matter definitively places Shen's work -- alongside works by Takashi Murakami - in the post-pop period, attempting to digest the nation's transition into a consumer-driven society.

Not surprisingly, such critical examination of the validity of Communist ideals has not gone unnoticed by China's central government. Just two years ago, one of Shen Jingdong's installations grouped Chairman Mao with political dictators of other countries and was promptly banned from a major Beijing international art festival.Despite the controversy surrounding his work, pieces have already been collected by the China National Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Retreat Museum in Singapore. Well-received both critically and at auction, there is every reason to believe Shen Jingdong's talent will
continue to unveil itself.

Eric C. Shiner is an independent curator and art historian specializing in Asian contemporary art.
An assistant curator of the Yokohama Triennial in 2001, Shiner is an active writer and translator, a contributing editor for Art Asia Pacific magazine, and adjunct professor of Asian art history at Pace University in New York City