Essential Event: An Art-Filled Saturday Night In Bushwick With Beat Nite & Brooklyn Armory Night

After you've gotten your daytime art fix out of the way this Saturday (whether at the Guggenheim, Whitney, MoMA or Armory Show), it'll be time to head back to Brooklyn for the seventh installment of Beat Nite, Bushwick's "half art stroll, half bar crawl. For the bi-annual event, which L Magazine named "Best Neighborhood-Wide Gallery Night," 19 local art spaces will be open from Saturday night from 6-10pm. On top of that, additional local spaces will also be staying open late as part of Brooklyn Armory Night. This will definitely make for a great, art-packed Saturday night.

Below we've highlighted a few exhibitions that we recommend checking out. You can also take a look at the entire Brooklyn Armory Night list and download a handy map to help you plot your journey to all of the Beat Nite spaces.

• Dreaming Without Sleeping at The Active Space - Dreaming Without Sleeping allows viewers to glimpse the artist’s view of our waking world: a bent, slightly pessimistic and occasionally hostile place populated by animals and people who are often reluctant to be interrupted by the viewer." Curated by 3rd Ward teacher Robin Grearson! Check out our preview of the exhibition.

• Skewville's 80th Birthday: A Retro Retrospective at Factory Fresh - "The Skewville twins have been making things since birth, from building club houses in the 70's, graffiti in the 80's, then on to commercial ventures in the 90's. In the past 13 years, they have been making innovations on the street and in art galleries with their stylized work and installations."

• Jesse Hulcher: The Remaster Cycle at Interstate Projects - "Through a wide range of digital and analog mediums, Hulcher explores the ways that corporate media influences how we view such disparate cultural experiences as the Vietnam war, Groundhog Day, and the Grateful Dead, among others."

• Tim Spelios: Scissors, Paper, Glue and Books I Can't Cut Up at Studio 10 - "Spelios's original source materials become the means to mine obscure connections and create irrational associations through juxtapositions of images and objects." There will also be a musical performance by Mr. Klopp,  a group that plays "an unpredictable amalgam of Cajun, Blues, Country, Psychedelic and Free Jazz."

• Tamara Gonzales: Untitled an exhibition of new paintings at Norte Maar - "The exhibition will feature the artist’s new series of works that combine her use of spray painting through lace.  Her new paintings spring to the optical extreme through her unique process of spray painting through found lace tablecloths, doilies, and curtains."

• Marking The Ridgewood Line at Cojo Art Space - "The focus of this show is brought to light by the nearly 30 artists who work with line, or with a lens capturing the hidden underdrawings in our everyday world."

-- John Ruscher

Essential Event: Six Decades Of John Chamberlain's Sculptures Loom Large At The Guggenheim

John Chamberlain: Choices, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February 24 - May 13, 2012 Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

While you're planning your March museum outings to check out MoMA's Cindy Sherman retrospective or the Whitney Biennial, we highly recommend adding the Guggenheim Museum's John Chamberlain: Choices to your list.

Chamberlain, who died in December at the age of 84, began his career as a sculptor in the mid 1950s, following four years of service in the Navy. He became known for forging sculptures out of automobile parts, which brought Abstract Expressionism into three dimensions and blended elements of Pop Art and Minimalism. "His astonishing, balanced sculptures stressed the deep volumes and eccentric folds that he managed to achieve by squeezing or compressing the metal and then welding the disparate elements into highly developed, collage-like compositions," says the Guggenheim.

Choices, which "pays tribute to the artist's process of active selection, or choosing, that is fundamental to his practice," is installed chronologically in museum, with his long career unfolding along Frank Lloyd Wright's upward spiral. C’ESTZESTY (2011), "a nearly 20-foot-tall work of painted and chromium-plated steel and stainless steel" is also installed along Fifth Avenue.

John Chamberlain: Choices is on display at the Guggenheim through May 13. Hit the jump to see some of the works featured in the exhibition, and as you do, meditate on a couple quotes from Chamberlain:

Kline gave me structure. De Kooning Gave me color. But I only agreed with him because the auto color was the same. It had nothing to do with being derivative. De Kooning knew about the color of America. The color of America is reflected in their automobiles.

One day something—some one thing—pops out at you, and you pick it up, and you take it over, and you put it somewhere else, and it fits. It’s just the right thing at the right moment. You can do the same thing with words or with metal. 

Fantail, 1961 Painted and chromium-plated steel 70 × 75 × 60 inches (178 × 190.5 × 152.4 cm) Collection of Jasper Johns © 2011 John Chamberlain / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: Jerry L. Thompson.

SPHINXGRIN TWO, 2010 Aluminium 192 7/8 x 165 3/8 x 145 5/8 inches (490 x 420 x 370 cm) Private collection Installation view: John Chamberlain: Choices, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February 24 - May 13, 2012 © 2011 John Chamberlain / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundationUntitled, ca. 1960 Paper, metal, painted and printed tin-plated steel, printed paper fabric, and paint on painted fiberboard 12 × 12 × 5½ inches (30.5 × 30.5 × 14 cm) Private collection Photo: Kristopher McKayC’ESTZESTY, 2011 Painted and stainless steel 238 x 67 x 67 inches (604.5 x 170.2 x 170.2 cm) Private collection Installation view: John Chamberlain: Choices, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February 24 - May 13, 2012 © 2011 John Chamberlain / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundationShortstop, 1957 Painted and chromium-plated steel and iron 58 × 44 × 18 inches (147.3 × 112 × 45.7 cm) Dia Art Foundation © 2011 John Chamberlain / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: David Heald/Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New YorkLord Suckfist, 1989 Painted, chromium-plated, and stainless steel 83 3/4 × 57 × 56 inches (212.7 × 144.8 × 142.2 cm) Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Brandhorst © 2011 John Chamberlain / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: Courtesy The Pace Gallery

-- John Ruscher

Our Picks: Five Must-See Artists Featured In The 2012 Whitney Biennial

 

The 2012 Whitney Biennial kicked off on Thursday, and while the major art world shindig has already attracted its share of protest and controversy (it even got "punk'd" with a fake website mocking its corporate sponsorship), we're looking forward to checking out the 51 contemporary artists that curators Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders have selected for the renowned showcase.

To give you a head start in your own biennial explorations, we've picked five participating artists whose work we're particularly excited to see (along with a small slice of trivia to accompany each one.) Check out the first two below and hit the jump for the rest.

Werner Herzog - The renowned filmmaker's contribution comes in the form of the multi-media installation Hearsay of the Soul, which incorporates the work 17-century Dutch printmaker Hercules Segers. 

Fun fact: At the biennial preview earlier this week, Herzog told Gallerist, "I don't go to museums because I don't like art. That's true. I don't like art."

Georgia Sagri - The provocative artist and political activist  presents an ongoing performance installation where you'll likely never know what to expect. 

Fun fact: Sagri played a role in early stages of Occupy Wall Street, which has called for an end to the biennial.

Mike Kelley - The recently-passed artist is represented by a series of films in which he chronicled his "Mobile Homestead," a replica of his childhood home in Detroit. 

Fun fact: The biennial has been dedicated to Kelley, who died of an apparent suicide on January 31.

The Red Krayola - The psychedelic rock band, which formed in Houston, Texas way back in 1966, will perform a "free-form freakout" on April 13 and collaborate with British conceptual artists Art & Language for an opera, Victorine, on April 14. 

Fun fact: While known as a rock group, The Red Krayola is no stranger to the art world. Founding member Mayo Thompson was a studio assistant for Robert Rauschenberg in the early '70s and renowned German artist Albert Oehlen has played with the band since the '90s.

Bess Forrest - The late "painter/fisherman" developed elaborate theories about united the male and female forms and operated on his own body to transform himself in a "pseudo-hermaphrodite." Fun fact: New York art critic Jerry Saltz almost got kicked off of Facebook for posting an image of Forrest self-surgery. 

Fun fact: New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz almost got kicked off of Facebook earlier this week for posting an image of Forrest's self-surgery.

And of course don't limit yourself to these five. There is a lot of other amazing work to see at the Whitney, and you've got plenty of time experience all of it. The biennial runs through May 27.

-- John Ruscher

UbuWeb Offers Up A Vast Treasure Trove Of Avant-Garde Art

Still from a Salvador Dalí television spot - watch it on UbuWeb.We all have those moments, don't we? You're trying to get work done, but it's just not happening. So you click on over to YouTube for some cat-on-a-vacuum videos, or to [insert any gossip website here] for some juicy tidbits, or to Facebook to see what your friends (and people you haven't spoken to in twelve years) ate for breakfast today. Sure, those escapes can be necessary, but when you finally turn back to your work, you tend to feel a bit dirty, like you've just consumed too much digital fast food.

For a more healthy and enriching diversion we recommend UbuWeb, a website that'll provide a long-lasting diet that's high in intellectual and artistic nutrients. Founded way back in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith, UbuWeb is a gold mine of artistic goodness, offering a range of materials from "all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts," including a huge collection of film and video art, an eclectic sound archive, an anthology of conceptual writing, and the always-fascinating Outsiders section, which highlights "broader cultural trends toward the legitimization of Outsider work, be it in the visual, musical, or literary arts."

There's an overwhelming amount of stuff to check out on UbuWeb, so after the jump we've culled five choice nuggets to get you started.  Here they go:

The Blank Generation - Amos Poe's film offers the earliest look at New York's punk scene, featuring Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, Television and many others.

Salvador Dalí videos - A collection of television ads and other strange moments with the famed surrealist.

Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine archive - The entire decade-long collection of the bimonthly audio publication, which featured works by many experimental and avant-garde downtown New York artists, from Fluxus icon Alison Knowles to Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo to turntable innovator Christian Marclay.

Videos and audio by Mike Kelley - A range of work by the acclaimed interdisciplinary artist, who died earlier this month.

Curated Top Ten lists - Lists of of UbuWeb goodies curated by a wide range of notable figures, including renowned designer Paula Scher, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, graphic novelist Warren Ellis and Whitney Biennial curator Jay Sanders.

-- John Ruscher

Call For Entries // NYCDOT's Barrier Beautification Program Wants Artists to Add Some Color To City Streets

"Planes A-Way" by Almond Zigmond - 21st Williamsburg St W between Kent and Flushing Aves, Brooklyn - alll photos via nycstreets

While our streets could definitely stand to benefit from the rogue creative touch of a guerilla gardener like Steven Wheen, NYCDOT is also trying to add a little more color to some of the city's many swathes of asphault and concrete. 

In 2010, as part of its Urban Art intitative, NYCDOT launched the Barrier Beautification program in collaboration with volunteer organization New York Cares and Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit. The program commissions artists and designers to create murals for those ugly concrete barriers that often separate bike lanes from automobile traffic. The cost of all materials is covered, selected artists are also awarded a $2,000 honorarium for their work, and New York Cares volunteers assist the artists with their murals, which stay up for 11 months.

Want to give some New Yorkers a more colorful commute? Got an amazing mural idea in mind? If so, the open call deadline for Barrier Beautification proposals is February 24.

For inspiration, we've included some images of past Barrier Beautification murals after the jump. You can also check out more examples over on NYCDOT's Flickr archive and get all of the details in the program's application packet.

Tillary Street Barrier Art by Chris Beck and Tanya Albrightsen-Frable - Tillary Street north of Adams Street, Brooklyn

"Roots/Routes" by Julia Whitney Barnes - West 155th St between Edgecombe Ave and Harlem River Dr, Manhattan

"Reflecting Pond" by Corinne Ulmann - 97th and Centreville Streets, Queens

"Face to Face" by Debra Hampton - Furman St between Joralemon and Montague Sts, Brooklyn

"Antimacassars" by Jennifer Cecere - FDR Service Drive North between 35th and 37th Sts, Manhattan-- John Ruscher

Epic Ideas // Illustrator James Gulliver Hancock Hopes To Draw Every Building In New York

All the Buildings in New York - Mott St, by James Gulliver Hancock.

Brooklyn-based Australian illustrator James Gulliver Hancock loves drawing. He also loves buildings. It makes sense then, that he's taken on an epic project bringing those two passions together. The project's name, All the Buildings in New York, says it all. His goal is to draw all of the Big Apple's buildings. While that ambition might be as far-fetched as Sufjan Steven's Fifty States Project, Hancock has done quite a few, and you can browse them by location via this nifty Google map. Hit the jump below to watch a video interview about the project.

Here's Hancock's explanation of how All the Buildings in New York got started, from an interview with CasaSugar:

I'd been doing this series of drawings where I capture a cliché of each city I'd visit; you can see the other ones on my website. So when I moved to New York, it was natural to do one here. However, moving to this great city, I was a little overwhelmed, so this became a special one.

It was interesting, because when I moved here it was like moving to a familiar place. Being originally from Australia, I'd seen so many pop culture images of New York that I almost didn't believe it was real. When I arrived, it had this kind of movie set-like mystique, so the blog was a conscious decision to try and tackle that, to make connections to my new home through drawing. And it's worked, through sitting down and taking in different places through the city, I've made new connections, planted markers of familiarity for myself within its structure and its reality, almost to the point that the buildings become little friends everywhere.

That sense of fascination and connection with his surroundings is what we love about Hancock's work. His project doesn't come across as a gimmick or contrivance, but a genuine glimpse of what it's like to discover the city. That's probably a familiar feeling for anyone who's moved to the New York, as is another moment that Hancock describes in that CasaSugar interview:

Sometimes in Summer, crossing one of the bridges, I've found myself with an uninterrupted view of the city, and I get heart palpitations, worrying that I may not be able to draw it all. I am a really focused person and it almost stresses me out the volume of buildings! But I hope to be here for a while, so we'll see!

Want to make sure Hancock gets to your building before he's old and gray? No problem: Commission the NYC building of your choice via his website.

And now for that video interview with Hancock, by Marisa Guzman-Aloia:

-- John Ruscher

Call For Entries // Triple Canopy Seeks Proposals From Writers And Artists

Digital collage with hand-rendered elements from "Origin, Departure," by Alyssa Pheobus & Murad Khan Mumtaz, commissioned through Triple Canopy's 2010 call for proposals.

Interested in publishing your writing or art as something more than just another cookie-cutter web article or blog post? How about submitting a proposal to Triple Canopy, the innovative online journal that we highlighted back in the fall? They've issued their third annual call for proposals and will be accepting applications until February 13 at midnight.

Along with the chance to be featured in an exciting and cutting-edge cultural journal, accepted proposals will get 3-6 months of artistic, editorial and technical support, an honorarium of up to $300, the option of presenting the project in a reading, workshop or discussion, and the opportunity to be featured in Triple Canopy's annual print publication, Invalid Format.

Sounds great, you say? We agree--but you've got work to do. So figure out which of these six project areas your idea falls into and submit away:  

- Research Work: A place for research projects outside academia, such as this piece about former NYC mayor John Lindsay.

- Immaterial Literature: Creative writing such as Tan Lin's The Patio and the Index, Ish Klein's poem Like on the Subject of the Icebreak or Joshua Cohen's Thirty-Six Shades of Prussian Blue.

- Internet as Material: Artwork that uses the Internet as "raw or appropriated material, comparable to acrylic paint or magazine clippings," such as Ellie Ga's A Hole to See the Ocean Through.

- Thinking Through Images: Analysis of popular media and fine art "from nineteenth-century paintings to Internet memes to documentation of current events," such as Ed Park and Rachel Aviv's Only Connect.

- New Media Reporting: an outlet for in-depth multimedia journalism, such as Brian Rosa & Ben Phelps-Rohrs' Tours and Detours: Walking the Ninth Ward.

- New Programming: Exhibitions, panel discussions, performances, film screenings and other events "that examine the intersection of culture, politics, and technology," such as Group Theory's BARTLEBY. A Rereading.

-- John Ruscher

BIG DEAL // Museum of Art & Design Offers Discount for 3rd Ward Members

From MAD's upcoming "Hanging Around" show, by Giorgio Vigna, 2002. Gift of the artist, 2009.

Inspiration comes in all forms--books, mood boards, a really good sandwich if you're Liz Lemon. You can't force it, but strolling through a museum is a pretty surefire way to pump up your creativity. That goes double if the museum features handcrafts, functional items, electronics, and jewelry not too far off from what you're trying to create. If nothing else, a trip to a museum is an unimpeachable procastinatory device. 

Which is precisely why we're so excited to give 3rd Ward members 10% off a membership to the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle. In addition to free admission for you and reduced admission for your nonmember friends, you'll get invites to opening receptions and discounts on educational events and performances. And you'll ensure you never miss shows like "Crafting Modernism," with jewelry, furniture, and textiles by the likes of Alexander Calder and Lee Krazner (this one closes in a week, so run), "Swept Away: Dust, Ashes, and Dirt in Contemporary Art and design" (opening February 7), and "Hanging Around," a collection of innovative necklaces. 

For a visual idea of what can be seen at MAD, just pause for a moment and gaze at this gorgeously crafted Wendell Castle piece:

Music Rack Wendell Castle, 1964 Purchased by the American Craft Council, 1964This all brings to mind a fantastic overheard snippet from an early show at the New Museum. We caught a woman saying: "I could make this, but I didn't. I guess that's why it's art." While we don't necessarily agree with that sentiment in all circumstances, it does hold some resonance when you're in a museum that has a special interest in innovative design and construction. You didn't make an Eames chair, but maybe looking at its shape will inspire you to create the next iconic chair--or earring, or bar of soap. And your newfound world fame will be that much sweeter because you'll know it all started with a discount.

--Layla Schlack