hal hartley

I had the great good fortune to notice that IFC is hosting the premiere of Hal Hartley’s latest films. I made tonight’s big screen showing of classics Surviving Desire, Ambition and Theory of Achievement. His new films are showing tomorrow 4/22. I picked them up on DVD and learned the Hartley is now back in New York after a handful of years working in Berlin. My interview with him from 2007 (in collaboration with Claire Adas) is archived here.
I’ll be hosting a movie night soon for these four new shorts.

new graffiti :: new collage

Back during the project now:here:this, which I ran with Artists Unite, several artists took up a technique of using Scotch Tape to grab images from printed matter and create layered collage (here’s an example from Tony Gonzalez). In the subway stop I use these days, some graffiti artists have taken a similar direction with a very clever technique: they are scavenging one poster to tag another. The results tend to run to the same (replaced heads, new eyes), but some of the pieces are great. Here are a few I’ve seen this month. I have no idea who the artists are…

Ed Hardy Ad #1. Ad tagged with Justin Timberlake’s eyes and smile. Too bad for Justin.
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Iron Chef Ad. Smart twist on the “eyes” theme (are we having flounder!?)
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Ed Hardy Ad #2. Unique use of Rhys’s necklace to bling up the ad.
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more info, no please

Doing some research on wordpress themes, I came across this website that I think is a writer’s book review site devoted to virtually everything cultural: ugly blog. What is everything cultural, you might ask? Well, imagine a syllabus that starts with Indonesian art and end with handbags of the apocalypse and you have the general scope. I say I think it’s a book review, because the site is relatively stream of consciousness and I am not confident of my following. I think I’m going to have to put this in my blog roll and spend a little time exploring this scattershot!
p.s. the expression “no, please!” should be tributed to leila shvetsov, who used this expression as a toddler when she was juggling learning both english and russian.

image (from an anarchist, so probably doesn’t care about copyright, but…) reportedly from October 2009 issue of Liberty. My source was this URL at ugly blog.

what i wanna do this week 4.9.10

this is one of those weeks that flies by, so much so that i’ve done one of the things i want to do this week as i’m writing this.
‡ Maly Theatre’s production of Uncle Vanya at BAM was superb. I like Uncle Vanya a lot to start with and the easy treatment of the play by this Russian company showed the true humor of that nation’s artists: witty, dark, absurd, sentimental, and bound to end up drinking.
‡ Pieter Hugo at Yossi Milo. This portraiture show features bizarre archtypal characters from Nigeria’s film culture, which is the third biggest in the world behind bollywood and hollywood. Aptly named, Nollywood, it looks karayzeee!

easter bklyn-style

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Easter according to my upbringing was a recognition of the rising of Christ from the dead. From my own spiritual study, it’s changed into a holiday that could celebrate the birth of higher consciousness and in yoga it is something done every time one meditates to bring awareness from the mortal to the immortal plane. My traditions, though, include dyeing easter eggs in geometric patterns (Ukranian) and eating chicks of bright yellow marsmallow (American) and hunting (White House lawn, et al); all of which I gave up long ago, though I still appreciate the colorful results. It was nostalgic today to see the pair of brightly-colored shoes on Union Street as I went for a stroll. I couldn’t help thinking they looked like hidden easter footwear!

The whole episode reminded me of two Christ-centric studies. The first is Gospel Truth, by Russell Shorto, which discuses current bible scholarship and is surprising in what it says about what the Catholic Church now believes. The second is Jesus of Montreal, a smart film that tells of a modern-day christ in the role of an actor-director of a passion play.

Happy easter!

from the hotbed of thought

My friends at Double Edge Theatre always keep me engaged in deep conversation. One young daughter of the clan is reading Herodotus (for fun), and in my skim of the front page of quotes, I see some explanation for our discussion:

They are wont to deliberate when drinking hard about the most important of their affairs, and whatever conclusion has pleased them, this on the next day, when they are sober, the master of the house where they happen to deliberate lays before them for discussion. If it pleases them when they are sober also, they adopt it, but if it does not please them, they let it go. Whatever they have had the first deliberation on when they are sober, they consider again when they are drinking.
— Herodotus, The Histories

what i wanna do this week. 3.25.10

Faye Driscoll at DTW. I love Faye’s work. It’s smart and funny and grabs you down where you thought your thoughts were private. I can’t wait to see her new piece, There is so much mad in me. Here’s a teaser.
Alice in 3D land. Wen is still gathering the endurance required to make it though Avatar, so I’m going to get my intro to 3D v.2.0 with the looking glass gang. Should be fun, as is anything where one gets to watch J. Depp…

guitars in my lap

My buddy Charley and I popped over to Barbes last night and sat nearly on top of two superb guitarists in a duo setting of jazz, rag, and pop classics. As a duo, Adam Levy and Jim Campilongo were ideally matched; the former an understated quirky explorer of the silence between delicious notes and the latter a straightforward wizard of multi-picked scalar improv. Both have new CD’s out, but also a boatload of catalog, including album credits with the likes of Norah Jones and Cake in addition to their own diverse projects. I am looking forward to following these guys.

what i want to do this week: 3.10.10

‡ LES. While it’s been growing and growing, it’s still off my beaten path. That changed a bit when Stephan Stoyanov opened his new larger space for Luxe (having first been a LES pioneer when real estate was less, well realistic).
Picture 1Today I hope to start with a set of paintings touching on my favorite yoga topic: tantra. Sue Gurnee: “The Fulgent Cadences” and “Tantra” is at Feature Inc. Gurnee creates paintings that purport to balance the mind for the best decisionmaking. Sounds like yoga, and Gurnee knows it. This show includes paintings from tantric gurus alongside hers.
From there, we’ll for sure hit Stephan’s Luxe and whatever else we can find before the late lunch options seduce us to stop…

what i want to do this week: 3.5.10

‡ Art FAIRS! It’s always a debate whether to try to take in this much art in one swoop. But there is an undeniable buzz. Thanks to Sky Pape (whose excellent show Water Works: Surface Tension is up through Saturday at June Kelly) I got to head to the ADAA Art Show with Joel Adas. Lots of great painting and drawing. Seems Marsden Hartley is the hot ticket. He and Burchfield were everywhere (and that’s a good thing!). I think I only saw one video in the whole show.

If my luck holds, I’ll be at the Armory Show with Kate Peila this weekend.