tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30655002757925628172024-03-13T23:44:53.295-04:00antARTica: the selfportrait.net blogselfportrait.net's blog covering community artists, gallery shows, and the whereabouts of young entrepreneurs and artistic talents from NY, LA, London, Paris, the world.selfportrait.nethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08365305344723378170noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-85298700823708101572009-02-24T15:56:00.003-05:002009-02-24T16:01:54.304-05:00Interview With Brian Willmont at Fecal FaceBrian Willmont is a cool and very stylistically and thematically developed artist working out of Santa Fe, whom I met last month at the 92nd St Y: Tribeca show "Invisible Somethings", also featuring selfportrait artist <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/ericdrawshaw">Eric Shaw</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1111&Itemid=63">http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1111&Itemid=63</a>Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-78245201204588822142009-02-23T15:11:00.002-05:002009-02-23T15:12:56.049-05:00TONIGHT Feb 23 2009, selfportrait.net co-hosts designer Gail Travis' gallery showing<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/gail-travis-invite-769263.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 231px; height: 400px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/gail-travis-invite-769231.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-83018192644513377682009-02-09T19:01:00.003-05:002009-02-09T19:11:27.435-05:00Crash Mansion 2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/personality-crisis-february-709444.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 400px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/personality-crisis-february-708718.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-66377991352373244692009-02-04T12:25:00.002-05:002009-02-04T12:32:17.057-05:00Asher Edelman on The Art Market Slump<script src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=dom&vid=/video/business/2009/01/21/roth.us.art.economy.cnn" type="text/javascript"></script><noscript>Embedded video from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video">CNN Video</a></noscript><br /><br /><br />This is a brief, vague bit from CNN, which doesn't at all get to the heart of the issue of the exorbitant prices at which art (not just blue-chip at auction) has been traded in the past 50 years, and the essential rethinking of art's role in society that this economic crisis (along with the new media generation and changing forms of consumption of culture) will compel some to undertake. However, it's always fun to see art people on mainstream television.Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-73089670221162220372009-02-02T21:00:00.003-05:002009-02-02T21:06:37.513-05:00Adapting America's Great Unknown Author<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/revolutionary-road-766515.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 209px; height: 320px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/revolutionary-road-766502.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />48 years ago an unknown author called Richard Yates released his first novel, Revolutionary Road. It was recently adapted into a star-cast Hollywood movie. When the book came out people were shocked by how deftly it portrayed the dull reality of post-war American life. It follows a young couple that settles into the suburbs but gets destroyed as they try to live out the American dream. It was a major success, a finalist for the nation book award alongside Heller’s Catch-22 and Yates won acclaim from writers like Vonnegut, Stryon, Tennesee Williams, Cheever and Richard Ford. But the rest of his career was tainted with disappointment; he never hit the same peak of success. By the time of his death in 1992 his name was out of mention and most of his books were out of print. A tragic story, so with the release of the film, questions arise about how it conveys Yates’ book and his legacy.<br /><br />For starters, the story’s female protagonist, April Wheeler, is far more complex in the book than she is in the film. In the movie she is portrayed as a beautiful but tortured woman, the dove who is pushed to madness by the dull and misunderstanding world around her. In the book, April is largely insane to begin with. This provides for one of the most interesting and ongoing counterpoints in the novel, one that is not present in the film. In the book, she comes from a broken home (her wealthy parents were wed on a cruise ship by its captain and then divorced not a year later), tries to abort her first child, has (presumably) only slept with one man in her whole life, and is ultimately an icily manipulative and selfish person. The rich depth of her character is not done justice in Sam Mendes' film.<br /><br /> Also, while April is the focus of the movie, the book is told largely from the perspective of her husband, Frank. One of the novel's central themes is his quest to prove his manhood. He has an exciting affair with a secretary (which is touched upon in the film), teaches himself how to stop apologizing to people ("Did a lion apologize? Hell, no." he thinks after he coldly ends his affair with the secretary), and by the end of the book he learns to have a sense of indifference to nearly everything ("this is my problem, that’s your problem.”) His character portrays the emergence of a new American man: confused and repressed. The Frank Wheeler of the film is a simpler man, one merely concerned with keeping his life under control.<br /><br /> Lastly, what is not conveyed is Yates' sense of humor. There are passages in the novel that are laugh-out-loud funny. The suffocating, repressed nature of the suburbs provides him with countless opportunities to pick and jab at its absurdity (like when Frank, over drinks with the neighbors, embarrassingly realizes he's telling them, almost verbatim, a story he's already told them before) In the film, this humor is non-existent, as if it was flushed out for Oscar purposes.<br /><br /> Of course it's an adaptation and not everything can be conveyed. Mendes tried his best. Its safe to say that what he made was an attractive drama about the tragedy of suburban life and the American dream, it is not, like the book is, a brooding examination of life in the anxiety of the 50's. Yates wouldn’t be disappointed but he definitely wouldn’t be satisfied. His book mercilessly portrays every aspect of the Wheeler’s painfully ordinary lives. The film is not as dismal and that makes all the difference.Alex Vadukulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02376908451620990924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-63892078328232315392009-01-16T17:02:00.002-05:002009-01-16T17:03:08.043-05:00pic from crash mansion<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/crash-mansion-1-781520.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 326px; height: 400px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/crash-mansion-1-781517.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-15394339010914014212009-01-12T12:02:00.002-05:002009-01-12T13:01:00.436-05:00Personality CrisisTomorrow night,<br />Tuesday, January 13th (and every month following) <br />at Crash Mansion (199 Bowery)<br />selfportrait and our friends <a href="http://www.selfportrait.net/shapes">SHAPES</a> bring you Personality Crisis.<br />Bands, girls, deep conversation. <br /><br />Tomorrow's bands: SHAPES, The Americans, Chewing Pics, Sweetie<br /><br />Works on canvas and installations from emerging artists at February's show.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/Personality-Crisis-Poster-s-734043.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 375px; height: 700px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/Personality-Crisis-Poster-s-733979.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-34613220146619601282009-01-09T23:52:00.006-05:002009-01-13T15:47:59.091-05:00Where do we go from here?Things that sometimes make me fear the world is going to end soon:<br /><br />a) the meteor Apophis<br />b) the Yellowstone supervolcano<br />c) the Wimbledon 2008 final: how can tennis go any further, as sport or spectacle, than this match pushed it? In the same sense that in 30 years the 100-meter sprint record has improved by less than a second, and the high-jump only two feet since Dick Fosbury, in a stroke of brilliance, decided one day to jump with his back to the bar, one sees in sports a figurative brick wall, an impasse, that we are headed towards: the limits of human physical speed, strength, and coordination (one also sees a different sort of impasse coming for art, but that's for another post). It seems that the next logical leap will occur as we more and more become cybernetic beings, augmented by technology. <br />That being said, if there were a God, and he were ending the world, he surely would punctuate the final year in history with this match.<br /><br />Here's the final game:<br /><br /><br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9p5IBHvhE40&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9p5IBHvhE40&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />P.S. if you're not a tennis fan, this post probably seems insane.Paris Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-56150295645659664232009-01-09T23:17:00.003-05:002009-01-09T23:39:47.533-05:00MilkI just saw Gus Vant Sant's <span style="font-style: italic;">Milk</span>. You will surely have read similar receptions elsewhere, but, to echo them, it's a profoundly moving film with excellent performances from everyone, and demonstrates Van Sant's mastery of the medium of film in numerous ways. I'm not here to review the film, however. Rather, I'm compelled to allow a post I found over at the IMDb message boards speak to both the film's excellence, and also to perhaps the most powerful and rarefied of effects a work of great art can achieve: the activation of positive, tangible change in the world. <br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><b>by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/user/ur4182214/boards/profile/">tony-674</a></b> <span style="font-size:-1;"> (Tue Dec 16 2008 04:19:06) </span></span><br /><blockquote>This is a 'confession' of a former right-wing fundamentalist. <br /><br />I was born into a 'christian' home; went to church, went to christian schools, listened to christian music and only had christian friends. I didn't even know what a homosexual was until later in life. My faith taught me to love and show compassion to others. Yet homosexuals were 'outside' this love. It was quite accepted and supported to discriminate against such 'sinners'. Yet in my early 20s (i'm 28 now), i started questioning everything .. esp the dogma surrounding the evangelical's churches view of homosexuals.<br />By 25 i finally came to the conclusion that no one would 'choose' homosexuality. I was angry that the God of the New Testament would create people whom he condemned.<br /><br />How does this all relate to the movie Milk? <br />Well ... i found myself crying in the parking lot after the movie was over. I felt angry. I was angry at myself for believing and accepting such hate. I regretted all the aweful things i had said/thought. This movie demonstrated how similarly the arguments in support of prop 8 were of prop 6. And that people still consider homosexuals to be deviants. There are many Anita Bryant's in the world today -- they just aren't as tactless. They pretend to love; yet they discriminate just as loudly. They are the Sarah Palins, the Mike Huckabee's, the Mormons and the evangelicals.<br /><br />For those reading this that are gay; I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the aweful, hateful things you have had to endure. You didn't choose to be gay but as John Stewart says people choose their religion. There is hope. People can change. After all, I did.</blockquote><br /><br />To a better world in the new year.<br /><br />-ParisParis Ionescuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15165564100102400491noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-85708390244485870402008-12-25T14:45:00.004-05:002008-12-25T14:59:16.900-05:00Looking at Music<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/1303448920768b0b6f-720635.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 214px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/1303448920768b0b6f-720612.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /> This small, three room exhibit at the Moma is probably one of the most overlooked in the museum, especially with artists like Joan Miro and Van Gough currently on display. This is unfortunate because it is also one of the most interesting.<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Looking at Music</span> chronicles some of the art that emerged as a result of the 60’s/70’s experimental sound revolution, a time when musicians were starting to use digital effects, dissonance, and minimalism in their work. Painters, composers, filmmakers, and writers began to take notice and were eager to implement these same elements into their own work. <br /><br />The first thing you see when you enter the exhibit is a haunting projection of John Lennon on the wall. He’s looking at you from under a dark mop of hair while he stands in the center of a courtyard. You can hear the crisp sound of cars and birds in the background. Slowly, he starts to open his mouth. “Hi,” he says, in a long drawn out growl. And you just feel like you spoke with John Lennon. <br /><br />It’s a piece by Yoko Ono, which is surprising of course, because her name is associated with the breakup of The Beatles and not interesting thought-provoking art. <br /><br /> Also besides the entrance are a series of compositions by composer John Cage. At the time he was greatly influenced by eastern music, so he tried experimenting with obscure forms of musical notation. One “piece” is notated with a series of dots and circles spread across a graph paper. Two music students staring at it were able to make some sense of the thing, “well, that dot must be a staff, and that speck has to be a quarter note,” they observed.<br /><br /> A contemporary of Cage’s, composer Nam Jan Paik, turned a mini television set into an abstract musical instrument. A bright white line is projected running diagonally across the TV screen. It stays this way, shining through the black. According to Paik the bright line is akin to what a single note of music would be like if it was sounded forever.<br /><br /> There is a clipping from a 1965 issue of The Village Voice. A dark chalked drawing of a woman walks across the page, obscuring the article. The paper was printed that way, with a portion of the story almost impossible to read. This piece signifies how widespread the energy and excitement for experimentation was at the time. Even publications were willing to try something new. <br /><br /> The last portion of the show examines the emergence of experimental music videos. In the “Penny Lane” video, by the Beatles, the band is shown roaming around London, traveling through gardens by horse, and finally having tea in the middle of a park. Strange stuff. In another music video, “Secret Agent Man,” by Devo, the band is shown wearing disturbing Ken Barbie-like masks as they rock out in a dingy factory basement. <br /><br /> The best part of the exhibit however, is watching peoples’ reactions. A pleasant old lady, for example, put on headphones to listen to Steve Riech’s piece, “Come out,” from 1966. The piece consists of a looped voice, which is then slowly sped up to produce a blurring warbling trance. The lady started off with a smile, which then slowly turned into a bemused grin, with then turned into helpless confusion, and she was forced to take the headphones off.Alex Vadukulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02376908451620990924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-9372740027711410292008-11-10T13:48:00.002-05:002008-11-10T13:50:42.143-05:00Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton at The New Museum<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/EP799-729205.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 325px; height: 400px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/EP799-729128.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In an art world championed by monumental sculptures and large-format prints, Elizabeth Peyton, painter of small oil portraits and aquatint street scenes, would seem an unlikely success. But such is the mystery and romanticism that shrouds the elusive artists’ career; one that begun in a Chelsea hotel room and continues now in the monumental white box of The New Museum’s main gallery. Almost fifteen years and over a hundred paintings later, there’s still much to be resolved.<br /><br />In looking for answers within Peyton’s work, we’re forced to contemplate her subject matter which ranges from historical figures (Napoleon, Ludwig II of Bavaria) to more recent celebrities (Kurt Cobain, Jarvis Cocker) to friends and family, many of who are famous in their own right, including the artists Matthew Barney and Piotr Uklański and the designer Marc Jacobs. The later are the most interesting, for what at first appears as systematic star fucking on closer inspection becomes a meditation on the temporality of life. <br /><br />A portrait of the rapper Eminem, casually titled Em, finds the celebrity in a contemplative, vulnerable state, uneasily positioned against a monotonous grey backdrop while a portrait of the Oasis front man Liam Gallagher and Pulp rocker Jarvis Cocker captures a private moment between two very public figures. The people that populate Peyton’s paintings are not always famous, as in Spencer Walking, in which a friend walks into a bustling city landscape, but even as so they are cast in an iconic light surrounded by figures like Walt Whitman and Keith Richards.<br /><br />Such romantic a notion could only be fostered by a gallerist like Gavin Brown, Peyton’s long time collaborator who has been known to allow his artists free range within his Chelsea space (even letting the artist Urs Fischer dig a crater into the marble of his gallery’s floor.) Peyton met Brown in 1995 while living in New York, a recent SVA graduate and Brown an aspiring gallerist on the brink of buying his first space. Peyton’s first show was mounted in a small room in The Chelsea Hotel, which Brown had rented allowing visitors to request a key at the front desk. The iconic locale, where Bob Dylan wrote Highway 66 and Dylan Thomas died of alcohol poisoning, is a monument of artistic death and rebirth, which provided the perfect setting for Peyton’s faded icons.<br /><br />But here, finally on display in a museum, they seem out of place; naked without setting and bare without context. Against white walls, Peyton’s work looses its figurative duality but engages in an irony that so very fitting for her work. Spaced against the walls, lit from overhead, every piece, every fleeting moment seems to live forever.Dylan Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08448164354586582802noreply@blogger.com170tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-15415880717357523802008-11-03T20:09:00.004-05:002008-11-03T20:25:47.373-05:00Mighty Ink<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/D4008WW0-765361.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 204px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/D4008WW0-765357.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />When Kevin Kallaugher was middle school, he thought it might be funny to draw a cartoon of his teacher. After he drew it, it soon started getting passed under desks and collecting giggles from every corner of the room. He was feeling proud and confident of himself, until, by some terrible stroke of bad luck, his teacher got hold of it. She was appalled by the image, which stressed her most prominent feature: a loud talking mouth. She made Kallaugher come up to the front of the class where she shamed him, making him promise that he would never do it again.<br /><br />Kallaugher did not keep his promise; in fact he did the direct opposite. Today, Kevin ‘Kal’ Kallaugher is the chief cartoonist for The Economist Magazine, where every week, his distinct ink cartoons shed some light and humor on the generally dour state of affairs in the world-at-large.<br /><br />He spoke last Saturday to a full house at the Edison Theatre, in the second of a series of programs hosted by The Economist Magazine. Audiences were made privy to the ins and outs of a professional cartoonist’s life; a highly specific line of work that he says, “maybe only roughly 80 people in this country actually make a living from.”<br /><br />“The pen is powerful,” Kallaugher warned, as he spoke of the Muhammad cartoon controversy in 05’, in which a Danish newspaper printed cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, “People got angry, people were killed. There were riots,” he said, “That was because of a cartoon.” <br /> <br />Kallaugher explained that the “trick” to political cartooning, is to identify the signature features of your subjects, and accentuate on them. “Sarah Palin is a hard one to draw,” he said, as he started giving us an actual demonstration on a big white paper board, “because she has this one eye that keeps on blinking.” <br /><br />McCain, he explained, “is Piranha-like” as he drew the candidate with a chuffed angry face, and John Kerry has a “massive chin,” for which he taped another sheet to the base of the first one to draw fully.<br /><br />Kallaugher stressed the importance of political cartoons, and why we love them, “Cartoons are empowering to those under authority,” he said; they can poke and chide. “Our job is not to make you laugh,” he said, “its to make you think.”Alex Vadukulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02376908451620990924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-1338249063334443762008-10-20T15:51:00.002-04:002008-10-20T15:57:41.680-04:00The Work of Marc Swanson<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/yetiweb-743489.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/yetiweb-743484.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Rhinestone encrusted trophy-heads, laminated t-shirt panels; taxideremied peacocks and woolen yetis are all reoccurring themes throughout the work of Marc Swanson. The New York based sculptor and installation artist has garnered a reputation for his deeply personal and highly aesthetic works which deal with issues of identity, masculinity, mysticism and death. His latest pair of shows at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum in Ithaca and the Bellwether Gallery in New York, further his investigation into the divisive nature of man and the cruel irony of nature with an ensemble of new works and a well-picked selection of old ones.<br /><br />Despite Swanson’s startling resolve and methodical approach to art making, his road to becoming an artist has not been a typical one. An art school dropout turned commercial sculptor, Swanson made a living designing trade-show displays and commercial plaster in San Francisco. As his skills developed and his confidence increased, he began to experiment with works of his own; consisting largely of small dioramas and installations, which challenged models of masculinity in the age of indentity politics. <br /> <br />With virtually no formal training, Swanson began showing in San Francisco and soon in New York before earning a residency in Switzerland. It wasn’t until 2000 that he enrolled in the prestigious nine-week residency offered by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and subsequently Bard College for his MFA.<br /><br />As his work has progressed, it has become increasingly personal and much of the works in the Johnson Museum and the Bellwether Gallery shows make reference to his childhood; growing up the gay son of a devoted trophy hunter in rural New Hampshire and moving to San Francisco to pursue art. Embellished deer recall hunting with his father, while mystic symbols made of the artists t-shirts and underwear ask grander questions about the state of man, all the while a peacock perched above appears as both a phoenix and a vulture, a constant reminder of death and reinvention.<br />The majesty of Marc Swanson’s work exists in his ability to capture a dual narrative. At once highly personal and self-referential, Swanson’s work illuminates greater truths about life in the modern era.<br /><br />The Saint at Large, Bellwether Gallery, New York, NY<br />Hurry on Sundown, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NYDylan Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08448164354586582802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-69403345347234543672008-10-10T21:08:00.009-04:002008-10-10T21:40:02.642-04:00The Pigeon Meets its Match<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/seagull-726276.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/seagull-726264.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />The Seagull is not an easy play. It’s about a group of artists who meet for a weekend retreat, and intense egotistical warfare ensues. It’s about a young writer trying to confirm himself, and the strange relationship he has with his mother. It’s about art and how it’s sometimes more a luxury and a necessity. At times, it’s a parody of art; it’s triviality. The difficult themes of Checkov's masterpiece are readdressed in a new, excellent, production at the Walter Kerr Theatre. <br /><br />Christen Scott Thomas, though not the main character is the main attraction. She plays the role of, Arkadina, Konstantin’s beautiful, proud and arrogant mother. Arkadina is a character is so complex and intricate, and Thomas plays her with such ease, that it’s a wonder Thomas hasn’t gone mad doing so. Or who knows, maybe already she has? There’s still ten weeks left.<br /><br />Mackenzie Crook, the gauntly cubicle worker from the British version of the Office, is gloriously redefined in the lead role of, Konstantin, the tortured young writer. And Peter Sarsgaard, though the weakest link because of his phasing American accent, plays the role of, Trigorin, the jaded writer genius nicely, with his deadpan butter face.<br /><br />People say that you can judge the quality of a Seagull production, among other things, by its ending; if it gets your jaw to drop. Well these guys must have done it in spades. <br /><br />For more information: http://www.seagulltheplay.com/Alex Vadukulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02376908451620990924noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-5513304205348451792008-09-30T13:31:00.015-04:002008-10-10T21:08:07.639-04:00Built to Spill at Terminal 5 09/26/08<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/builttospill-782842.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/builttospill-782839.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />It was a mash up. A triple bill of some of the most important indie bands of the 90’s: The Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr., and the headliner, Built To Spill, performing the entirety of their album, Perfect From Now On. <br /><br />The Meat Puppets hadn’t aged well. Their legendary drug use had taken its toll, both the Kirkwood brothers looked haggard, especially Chris, the bassist, who looked like an old tree log. But they still managed to rock through their foot tapping country-tinged grunge with grace. They ended with an impressive jam that left behind a quiet audience in its quake. <br /><br />The Meat Puppets were loud, but Dinosaur Jr. was a war machine. J. Mascis, their long white haired guitarist and front man, was like a towering Nordic God as he thrashed out angry riffs from within the confines of a Marshal Stack fortress. <br /><br />Built To Spill played to a packed theatre. Part of front man Doug Marstch’s charm is that his face has a calm to it when it’s not whining melodies, but tonight it seemed that in many ways, he was genuinely tired. After performing the same album day after day for months on end, Marstch seemed weary. <br /><br />When the band was finished, they were treated to a roaring applause. Amid the shouting and clapping Marstch’s strumming arm could be heard playing the introduction to “The Plan,” a song not on the album. Then they played “Center of the Universe.” And then in what seemed too good to be true, they jumped into their indie rock masterpiece, “Carry the Zero.” For the first time in the show Marstch seemed truly passionate. His face turned a violet red as his convulsing body banged on the strings of his guitar, and he sang with pure cold-blooded conviction about love as a failed math equation.Alex Vadukulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02376908451620990924noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-32956995679744191792008-09-15T17:43:00.013-04:002008-09-15T23:37:12.863-04:00The Market Hotel: The Story<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_F38qd7RRNw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_F38qd7RRNw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/?action=view&current=Charlie1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/Charlie1.jpg" width="400" height="274" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/?action=view&current=AlexLevine.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/AlexLevine.jpg" width="400" height="274" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/?action=view¤t=Michael.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/Michael.jpg" width="400" height="274" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/?action=view&current=Mariel.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk112/RivasGreeley/Summer%2008/Mariel.jpg" width="400" height="274" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a><br /><br />Go to <a href="http://themarkethotel.com">The Market Hotel</a> for a gallery of pictures of when The Americans & The So So Glos performed. <div><br /></div><div>- Greeley</div><a href="http://www.selfportrait.net/greeley">selfportrait.net/greeley</a>Matthew Greeleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824341493024865739noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-28010511401993773272008-09-14T05:41:00.006-04:002008-09-14T05:57:34.034-04:00Plastic TopographyNormally, I only write about the galleries in the Paris, but on a recent trip to NYC I stopped by the Melville Gallery down at the South Street Seaport. It is a small gallery run by the <a href="http://www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org/">South Street Seaport Museum</a>. The show, <a href="http://www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org/index1.aspx?BD=9521">Plastic Topography</a>, curated by Carl Eckhoff, runs through the end of September. The artist roster includes: Steven Baines, Kim Baranowski, J.J. Garfinkel, Adam Henry and Duke Riley.<div><br /></div><div>These works alternate back and forth between the emotional and the absurd - sometimes causing a vast sense of aloneness, sometimes loss, sometimes teasing and, at times, they are even more playful on your second look. The photographs of Antartica, by Kim Baranowski, awe with their absolute beauty and striking colors of nature. At first look, you too might not be able to tell they are real. I had to ask. Although this is just a small look at what these artists have created, you are left wanting more ... perhaps the best indication of a successful show. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>Duke Riley, "Photograph of Duke Riley in the Acorn Submarine"</div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9HqQUG0xgQ/SMwYrmjxbJI/AAAAAAAAAzI/NThRSP9-4os/s320/DR1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245594803343813778" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Duke Riley, "Untitled"<br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9HqQUG0xgQ/SMwZSKUulqI/AAAAAAAAAzQ/cADxnQfqmVg/s320/DR2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245595465779418786" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Steven Baines, "Monkey Lost at Sea"</div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9HqQUG0xgQ/SMwcPOWGGJI/AAAAAAAAAzY/i-T6cmqgpvI/s320/SB1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245598713854171282" /></div></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Kim Baranowski, "Scenic View"<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9HqQUG0xgQ/SMwdt2Fc-9I/AAAAAAAAAzg/ted9vqwR-Ng/s1600-h/KB1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9HqQUG0xgQ/SMwdt2Fc-9I/AAAAAAAAAzg/ted9vqwR-Ng/s320/KB1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245600339429489618" /></a><br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-12898131083445016572008-09-12T15:43:00.002-04:002008-09-12T15:56:17.365-04:00Tam Ochiai at team Gallery NYC<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/056-760969.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/056-760855.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /> With a far more sophisticated and dynamic touch than that of author Louis XXX or similar illustrators, Japanese artist Tam Ochiai has taken to delicately mimicking the honest and romantic style of an untrained child sketching with colored pencils—thinly veiling, of course, the formal talent he possesses as an established artist whose current show has been written up in artscape and Tokyo Art Beat.<br /> The opening of Ochiai’s fifth solo show at team (gallery inc.) last Tuesday included seventy 11 x 8.5 colored pencil drawings framed and hung in a neat row which ran all the way around the white walls of the Grant Street space. Some of the forms are wispy gestures on shallow backgrounds, manifesting the crème of Western cultured life’s treasured indulgences—french fries, tennis, classical music; others are layered, waxy color fields in which hover what appear to be moons, but are titled far more ominously (“Benign Tumor”). <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/042-703120.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/042-703010.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /> The stated source of the unpolished style is the show’s protagonist, real life 19th Century prize-winning show cat Tiam O’shian IV, through whose mind Tam Ochiai approaches his subjects, not unlike an experiment in, say, being John Malkovich. The thin, uneven pencil scratches do indeed suggest a feline presence, but I would argue that it is hard not to associate the drawings more with a gesture towards childhood and memory. One looks upon one of the pieces in the show as one looks upon a Tin Tin story—sweetly optimistic, bright and simple, but unerringly true and somehow aesthetically and emotionally profound. The moments he has sketched out are deeply personal in their rawness: the minimal strokes allow the viewer to fill in the face of their own long-distance romancier or favorite tennis partner, we identify which of the listed French breakfast treats hold special places in our hearts, etc. The more frenzied scribbles seem to reference the way in which emotions, in memory, fall apart, and their strands float freely through our remembered past, as we attach them where we will in its recalling. Tam’s drawings become somehow our own intimate pictorial memories, only more elegant and more exotic—the way we would like to remember them.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/065-774217.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/065-774114.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />It was beautiful to see a slightly older Japanese artist look backwards in time this way, especially because he does it while distancing himself from the now-mainstream techniques of Nara or Murakami: channeling a daunting youth through the whimsical plasticity and consumerism of Japanese anime culture. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/install951sm-723308.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/install951sm-723302.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /> Best of all, the gallery was subtly but completely interrupted by two large installations: a giant tube in the main room and a white cube in the back room which creates a sort of square hallway path for viewing the series. You could walk through the show without noticing much of the sculptures except the inconvenience they cause…that’s the point. According to the press release, the objects “can’t help but alter the movement of a viewer attempting to move simply from drawing to drawing. The sculptures serve to foreground the role of the human body and of architecture in the “reading” of drawings.” They succeed—may I say that they explore the ways in which we construct and obstruct our own memories? <br /> The party, too, was fun—photographer Ryan McGinley pranced past team gallery Associate Director Alex Logsdail and social fixture Drew Caldwell to browse the works. If you can’t make it to team for Tam, definitely pencil in time to see the Cory Archangel show which will take its place later in the year. Check out teamgal.com for details.selbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870278978956945775noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-56806897408550102942008-09-09T11:10:00.003-04:002008-09-09T15:05:46.778-04:00Selfportrait Summer PodcastWe've all returned to school or whatever and I don't know about you, but I am savagely clawing to hang on to the last remnants of summer. Anyway, for those of you who are like me or for those of you who missed it, summer in New York City saw the production of some great music. Here is a small podcast of the best of it from up and coming recording artists living in the City. Listen to it in January when it's freezing and remember that June is only six short months away.<br /><br />1. Self-Taught Learner -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/lizzytrullie">Lissy Trullie</a><br />2. 123 Stop -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/thepostelles">The Postelles</a><br />3. One Night Stand -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/theamericansnyc">The Americans</a><br />4. We Got the Days -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/sosoglos">The So So Glos</a><br />5. Start It Out -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/frankpollis">Frankpollis</a><br />6. Anomalous Phenomena -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/eartheaternyc">Earth Eater</a><br />7. Feed -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/iamjuliasmusic">Julia Tepper</a><br />8. I Heart New York -- <a href="http://www.myspace.com/samuelmusicnyc">Samuel</a><br /><a href="http://www.zshare.net/audio/184707334d350a6f/"><br />Click here to listen.</a><br /><div style="text-align: right;">-E.U.<br /><a href="http://selfportrait.net/eddieubell"><span style="font-size:85%;">selfportrait.net/eddieubell</span></a><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-6608007524282571212008-09-01T20:45:00.009-04:002008-09-02T03:34:06.163-04:00Isaac Brest and Still HouseIsaac Brest is an exciting prospect to come across. He is a talented photographer though he never considered himself a photographer at all until a few months ago. Even so, he’s been taking pictures for years. Great pictures. And, as someone for whom photography does not normally speak to as a medium (the rash of lastnightsparty.com scene shots and contrived black and white digital works of New York City lamp posts make me really nauseous), Isaac Brest has absolutely renewed my interest.<br /><br />Sitting in a small coffee shop around the corner from 7Eleven Gallery, the space that he and the artist collective he co-runs with longtime friend Alex Perweiler are transforming into a cohesive exhibition space (but more on that later...), Isaac enlightened me as to the importance of a good eye, film over digital, exposure length, types of cameras, and the general catharsis of the development process.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/00010007-718260.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/00010007-718189.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />His most impressive work is a succinct series of photographs taken during time spent abroad in Cuba. Walking through the streets, Isaac captured a world that is rarely seen as a traveler. He exposes something through his pictures that displays a comfort--a familiarity, actually--with these scenes that is very hard to show as an outsider. It is noteworthy that Isaac values his film. He is not of the habit of taking pictures superfluously and then relying on probability to produce a handful of quality shots. No picture is taken without forethought and Isaac will not even focus his lens unless he is positive the photograph will come out well. Hence, these are not the photos of some turista snapping away at a countryside or ecclesiastical monument, they are the products of immersion and research.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/00010033_1-787803.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/00010033_1-787744.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />As the photos are almost journalistic in their representation, they are artistically resonant. The importance of having a good eye and a handle on craft and technique are present as Isaac’s deft studies of light and shadow create dramatic Brassai-esque atmospheres for his photographs. Most definitely check out Isaac's work at his <a href="http://isaacbrest.com/">website</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/00010003-719402.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/00010003-719321.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Isaac is also doing something very exciting in the form of the artist’s collective <a href="http://enterstillhouse.com/">Still House</a> which he cofounded with his longtime friend Alex Perweiler. It is terrific to see peers and artists coming together with the sheer intention of exposing what they find exciting to the world.<br /><br />The collective, which consists of Isaac and Alex, Lucien Smith, Jack Greer, Louis Eisner, Zach Susskind, Brendan Lynch, Nick Darmstaedter, Jack Siegel, and John Roman, is something that has been absent for a long time. The mission, according to Isaac, is to create a sort of "one stop shop" for the emerging artists that are working in New York City. Currently, the residents all exist within the same scene, but eventually Isaac aims for the group to be a more open forum based exploration of the youth-based art of high quality in New York. It is an assembly of peers that are very excited about eachother's work. To me, that is the purest form of artist representation. The group is inspiring. Anything that can bring artists together to engage in dialogue and promote the creation of work and generate exposure is always beneficial.<br /><br />Go see their opening of photography, mixed media, and installation work on Friday, September 5th, from 6pm to 9pm and the 7Eleven Gallery located at 711 Washington Street in Manhattan.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">-E.U.<br /><a href="http://selfportrait.net/eddieubell">selportrait.net/eddieubell</a><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-12332453692272792812008-08-26T09:49:00.008-04:002008-08-26T15:36:39.612-04:00Eric Shaw: In the HouseThe work featured by Eric Shaw in his new, one-man exhibition is a perfect sampling of the artist’s highly referential and tightly themed art. The show presents a series of painstakingly ornamental and stylized interior works. With meticulous attention paid to the intricacy of patterning, the non-gestural works actually gain body as the illusory effect of the twisting and turning lines weave and form patchworks of decoration. Meanwhile, Shaw makes appropriate reference to those who have preceded him in the same vein. With a clear grounding in history, there are smatterings of Op Art , ancient Mesoamerican symmetrical work, a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Kooning</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">esque</span> portrait, and Pop Art explorations of camouflage and tie-dye. Like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Édouard</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Vuillard</span> within his own interior works, Shaw often flattens his dimensions and lets the embellished texture speak for itself. The amalgam of references is well taken though not overpowering and the artist is able to move forward with his own original thesis.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/n33501158_30559255_9933-740358.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/n33501158_30559255_9933-740354.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The most enigmatic aspects of these pieces are the representations of figures. Ambiguous and often androgynous, they are faceless with uniform physique and shoulder-length black hair; their bodies cut off or contorted at awkward angles. It is notable that they are simple, line-drawn creatures, bereft of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">phantasmagorical</span> color and detailing that permeates the works that they inhabit. As these blank humans reside within the Technicolor playgrounds that Shaw has created, the depiction is evocative. Man, in this world, appears very simple when compared to his environment.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/n33501158_30559256_452-765921.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/n33501158_30559256_452-765917.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Overall, the work is strong in style and creativity. Shaw uses an distinctive (almost 1950s retro) color palette to create his interiors making the work playful. His application of the palette to established patterns like camouflage or the normally two-tone, hard-edge abstraction that Bridget Riley uses in her optical art maintains the work’s lightheartedness. What makes it especially noteworthy is the juxtaposition of styles and object representations. Shaw does not partake in academic dimensionality or typical scaling. This technique creates a visual puzzle. When viewed, each piece needs to be broken down as furniture, wall hangings, and other fittings, organized and cognitively registered. Truthfully, at first examination, the works seem a little too big a mouthful to swallow. Once time is spent with them, however, the pictures reveal themselves as thoroughly conceived and carefully produced living areas.<br /><br />“Eric Shaw: In the House” is available for private viewing at the selfportrait gallery until September 12th. The gallery is open from 12pm to 5pm. To arrange a viewing, for a complimentary catalogue, or for pricing please email info@selfportrait.net.<br /><br /><br />Photos courtesy of Antwan Duncan - www.ithinkyoureswell.com<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric26-763155.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric26-763018.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric33-728308.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric33-728270.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric29-728384.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric29-728346.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric43-769928.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric43-769893.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric49-770001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric49-769965.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric50-712386.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric50-712348.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric82-712467.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric82-712420.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric89-746116.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric89-746077.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric101-746234.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric101-746199.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric106-750935.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric106-750931.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric115-751011.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/eric115-750970.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-30979656239144841322008-08-23T22:15:00.007-04:002008-08-27T13:27:15.108-04:00Selfportrait.net presents the "Eric Shaw : In The House" opening party at the Market Hotel with Amazing BabyThe opening party was a huge success! Special thanks to Amazing Baby, Colt 45 and Fizzy Lizzy. <br /><br />Photos by Ryder Haske:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357505108_862KN-XL-708606.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357505108_862KN-XL-708598.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357495160_RXTEC-XL-730405.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357495160_RXTEC-XL-730399.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357500825_9oEcW-XL-793509.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357500825_9oEcW-XL-793503.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357469036_c3fdp-XL-746160.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357469036_c3fdp-XL-746149.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357497129_HSmHD-XL-747850.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357497129_HSmHD-XL-747840.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357504591_Q8x4w-XL-747956.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357504591_Q8x4w-XL-747947.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357488895_73hHR-XL-797155.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357488895_73hHR-XL-797148.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357485233_5VRV4-XL-797259.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357485233_5VRV4-XL-797252.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357513816_4e5or-XL-712222.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357513816_4e5or-XL-712214.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357488312_pxrSZ-XL-793440.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357488312_pxrSZ-XL-793250.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357522693_dhEgR-XL-788036.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357522693_dhEgR-XL-788027.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357516952_QtHAv-XL-784818.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357516952_QtHAv-XL-784700.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357512838_Dd9ao-XL-706928.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357512838_Dd9ao-XL-706921.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357508223_TFdre-XL-720212.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357508223_TFdre-XL-720205.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357511896_KxLH8-XL-766472.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357511896_KxLH8-XL-766459.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357515378_qVPq9-XL-783757.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357515378_qVPq9-XL-783751.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357510355_H9t7t-XL-712292.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357510355_H9t7t-XL-712285.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357501439_a3Whv-XL-720137.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357501439_a3Whv-XL-720111.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357479799_ifMi8-XL-746301.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357479799_ifMi8-XL-746244.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357506564_aFYwV-XL-756952.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357506564_aFYwV-XL-756945.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357490433_zEnCr-XL-757035.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357490433_zEnCr-XL-757027.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357482330_jPpAH-XL-730286.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357482330_jPpAH-XL-730275.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357523714_EQU8F-XL-708680.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/357523714_EQU8F-XL-708673.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>selfportrait.nethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08365305344723378170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-17150462093470277192008-08-23T15:33:00.005-04:002008-08-23T19:10:26.085-04:00Bright Idea Shade: Design for a Changing WorldContrary to popular belief, it <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> easy being green. As always, the <a href="http://eyebeam.org/">Eyebeam Art and Technology Center</a> is on the foreground of making ecologically conscious living a realistic and attainable goal. As your incandescent bulbs begin to burn out, try replacing them with compact florescent light bulbs (the spiral ones that burn brighter and longer using far less energy). But oh, the brightness! Here's a little video that can help you dim the harshness and show your design savvy:<br /><br /><object height="302" width="400"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1553079&server=www.vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"> <embed src="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1553079&server=www.vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="302" width="400"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://www.vimeo.com/1553079?pg=embed&sec=1553079">Bright Idea Shade</a> from <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/user653209?pg=embed&sec=1553079">Michael Mandiberg</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/?pg=embed&sec=1553079">Vimeo</a>.<br /><br />Check out the full info <a href="http://eyebeam.org/project/cfl">here.</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">-E.U.<a href="http://selfportrait.net/eddieubell"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">selfportrait.net/eddieubell</span></a><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-25563343359235168482008-08-21T21:41:00.004-04:002008-08-21T22:13:00.060-04:00Renovating The Market Hotel/ Eric Shaw : In The House (Tomorrow Night!)In preparation for Eric Shaw : In The House, the first ever art show at the Market Hotel, beginning tomorrow night at 7pm, featuring DJ Max Kamins, a set by Amazing Baby, 25 cases of 16 oz. Colt 45 cheap vodka and a shit load of Fizzy Lizzy, Greeley and I have built track lights:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6464-755667.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6464-754872.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6588-713892.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6588-713116.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6620-705661.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6620-704999.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6625-781629.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6625-780925.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6578-744078.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6578-743401.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6481-702300.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/IMG_6481-701572.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />The Market Hotel is in Brooklyn, on the corner of Broadway and Myrtle. Assuming you live in Manhattan, take the JMZ to Myrtle Aze. and walk 30 ft., just left of Mr. Kiwi's.selfportrait.nethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08365305344723378170noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3065500275792562817.post-76336358577474469212008-08-19T15:41:00.004-04:002008-08-22T04:27:57.763-04:00The Americans<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/the-americans-stock-745831.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 251px; height: 161px;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/the-americans-stock-745810.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>It is clear that Rolling Stone sometimes still has a point. This was especially proven in a small blurb under the editor's picks column last month. “Powerpop” they said, “is the new Afro-Pop.” And indeed, it seems that the type of music that Vampire Weekend made so popular last winter is being usurped by the style of music that is being played by a young, New York City band of great talent, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/theamericansnyc">the Americ</a><a href="http://www.myspace.com/theamericansnyc">ans</a>. Made up primarily of Charlie Klarsfeld (vocals and guitar), Julia Tepper (back up vocals), Xan Aird (bass) and Peter Negroponte (drums), the band features accompaniment by the Dap Kings (Mark Ronson's house band) on horns. Together, they have created a wonderfully strong collection of catchy pop melodies that are as danceable as their lyrics are pertinent.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/charlie-761213.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/charlie-761210.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Klarsfeld, the chief songwriter of the group, has constructed an erudite, Baroque pop sound making excellent use of his musicians to create songs that remain chipper and lighthearted, yet orchestral and well contained. Dominated by thumping piano and punctuated by Klarsfeld's relaxed, garage-y guitar playing, the compositions embrace their retro feel while maintaining a progressive structure of successful transitions of disparate melodies; not just between songs, but within them. At the same time, nothing seems excessive or pretentious, the bells and whistles (literally) all fuse to a serious musical undertaking. Add his strong, Brian Wilson-eque voice, some goose-bump raising soulful licks (courtesy of Ms. Julia Tepper) and you have a combination capable of anthemic sensitivity in lyrics and musicianship.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/julia-727069.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://blogs.selfportrait.net/uploaded_images/julia-727059.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Klarsfeld's words are something of the literature of place and, lyrically, he is clearly paying homage to his hometown of New York City. While songs about New York are nothing new, the urban schema provides him with a background for some seriously original reflections on life, love, our awkward yet often hilarious idiosyncrasies, and even a little backhanded hopefulness. The Americans are a band for the moment; a band for the summer in New York. Their exuberance and vanguard talent is something that has come along at the very best time. And, as Fall begins in the City and NYU students return to their dorms, the song "One Night Stand" will, I'm sure, become even more appropriate.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">-E. U.<span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a href="http://selfportrait.net/eddieubell">selfportrait.net/eddieubell</a></span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4