This Sunday: Joshua Kirsch Fills Art Mana Fest With The Sounds Of 'Sympathetic Resonance'

In 2010 Joshua Kirsch turned the 3rd Ward lobby into an incredible musical instrument with his interactive installation Sympathetic Resonance. We actually asked him to install it again when we curated Wired Magazine's holiday pop up store that winter. So for those that may not have caught his work in our lobby (or those that just want to see it again) Kirsch will be presenting Sympathetic Resonance once more this Sunday as part of the Art Mana Fest in Jersey City.

"I had a blast deciding where all the different marimba key modules would go," Kirsch says of his time with us back in 2010. "The 3rd Ward lobby provided an excellent canvas in which to explore the different possibilities." Since that installation, Kirsch has had the chance to overhaul and refine the piece to improve the functionality and durability of Sympathetic Resonance. "Also, I've added the ability to fine tune the angle of each module to a degree hundreds of times more precise," he says. "This allows me to create installations with perfectly sweeping curves, something which would have been impossible before."

For the Art Mana Fest he will also present Oculus, which features 18 leg-like extensions that can all be manipulated by turning a central hub. "I knew it would work, but I did not know exactly what it would look like until the piece was finished," Kirsch says. "What resulted in the end was something that resembled an 18-legged spider a lot more than I expected, which I really like."

For his exhibition's opening, which takes place this Sunday, March 11 from 1-5pm, Kirsch will perform a three-minute piece that he composed specifically for Sympathetic Resonance, and jazz and classical musicians will also use it in ensemble performances. "Of course, a lot of the afternoon will be left available for guests to try their hand at playing the installation," Kirsch says. "From experience, I can tell you that some 'heart and soul' will definitely make an appearance or two."

Sympathetic Resonance will be on display through April, and musicians can even enter to win a $1000 cash prize by performing their own music on Kirsch's sculpture.

-- 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

Essential Event: Over 30 Years Of Cindy Sherman's Powerful Photography Comes To MoMA

Untitled Film Still #21, 1978 - Courtesy MoMA and Cindy Sherman

Here's the abbreviated version of this post: Cindy Sherman is amazing and you should go see the Museum of Modern Art's new retrospective of her work, which just opened this past weekend and is on view through June 11.

If you're not already out the door and on your way to West 53rd Street, let us elaborate. For the uninitiated: Born in 1954, Cindy Sherman was the youngest of five children. She started painting while attending Buffalo State College, but she ultimately discovered that photography was where it's at. Searching for a unique subject for her work, she didn't have to look far: herself.

To say that she is really the sole "subject" of her photographs, though, barely scratches the surface of her work. In her art Sherman takes on many different identifies, using wigs, wardrobe, makeup and more to pose as everything from a film noir heroine to a frightening clown to the subject of paintings by paintings by Caravaggio and Raphael. "I feel I'm anonymous in my work," she said in a 1990 New York Times article (which aptly opens by calling her "the woman of a thousand faces"). "When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear."

Here's a choice description from Roberta Smith's Times review of the new retrospective:

Unfolding in discrete, chapterlike series, her work has proved to be as formally ambitious and inventive as it is psychically probing. Her photographs are inevitably skewed so that their seams show and their fictive, constructed nature is apparent; we are always in on the trick, alerted to their real-feigned nature. The rough, visible nonchalance with which they are assembled for the camera has expanded the boundaries of setup photography, incorporating aspects of painting, sculpture, film, installation, performance, collage and assemblage.

Smith goes on to say that MoMA's survey, while historic, could have been even more monumental. That's no reason to delay your visit, though. This is a rare chance see the singular work of an amazing and capital-I Important Artist at one of the world's top museums. So get on it folks.

Below, watch a video about the retrospective, and remember: MoMA admission is free on Fridays from 4-8pm. Oh right, if this makes you want to brush up on your photography chops, we've got classes for that!

-- John Ruscher

Friday Opening: Robin Grearson Curates Criminy Johnson's 'Dreaming Without Sleeping' At The Active Space

 

Back in June we highlighted Stay Gold, 3rd Ward teacher Robin Grearson's curatorial debut during Bushwick Open Studios. We also featured her second curatorial endeavor, the two-person show Is Between, which she organized for Bushwick Beat Nite. Now she's curated her third exhibition, Dreaming Without Sleep, which opens this Friday, February 24 from 7-10pm at The Active Space.

Dreaming Without Sleeping showcases the work of Criminy Johnson, also known for his street art as QRST. "Criminy Johnson creates oil paintings depicting the strange environments and subjects he imagines, and while working out his ideas, he often makes wheatpastes that relate to these in some way," Grearson says in the press release for the exhibition. As Johnson's first NYC solo show, Dreaming Without Sleeping gives those familiar with his street work (which you may have encountered around the neighborhood) a chance to see another side of his art.

Friday's exhibition reception will also celebrate the grand opening of The Active Space, which just put the finishing touches on its new gallery space. Grearson invited us over to check out the gallery and an in-progress QRST wall mural that Johnson is creating for Dreaming Without Sleeping. Check out some photos, along with some Johnson's oil paintings after the jump.

Make sure you get to Friday's opening early, as the first people to arrive can snag a very limited number of one-of-a-kind drawings straight from the hands of Mr. Criminy Johnson.

And if you're having trouble finding the right words to describe your own art, keep an eye out for upcoming sessions of Grearson's 3rd Ward class, Learn to Love Your Artist Statement (or at least make friends).

-- John Ruscher

This Saturday: A Tale of an Unrealized Computer Opera Unfolds at Triple Canopy

 

Esteemed local arts organization Triple Canopy is always thinking outside the box, from their groundbreaking online publication to readings of "allegedly unreadable" books, and this week they'll treat us to another singular event at their Freeman Street headquarters in Greenpoint.

They describe Thursday's The Tale of the Big Computer (based on Swedish artist Anna Lundh's essay of the same name in Triple Canopy's 13th issue) as a "deluxe reading, performance and silent concert." 

That essay explores the history of The Tale of the Big Computer: A Vision, a 1960s sci-fi novel written by Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist Hannes Alfvén under the pen name Olof Johannesson. The novel inspired Swedish composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl's vision of an ambitious and unprecedented "computer opera," which he was unable to realize before dying of a heart attack. Blomdalh left behind only traces of the grand work that he planned to create, such as how the "opera's audio would rely heavily on tape recorders, which would be controlled, in part, by cosmic radiation, producing a different result each night" and how a "synthetic computer voice would be the only 'soloist.'" Lundh gathers together these traces and imagines what might have been if things had happened differently.

To find out how Lundh will translate her fascinating essay in a live setting, head to Triple Canopy's 155 Freeman Street space this Saturday. Doors are at 6 and The Tale of the Big Computer starts at 6:30pm. We're particulary curious about the mysterious "silent concert." 

-- John Ruscher

Member Pursuits // Noah Wall Creates A Video For "Blue Station," Plays Live Shows Friday And Monday

When we caught up with new 3rd Ward member Noah Wall back in December, we talked with him about both his award-winning web design work and his recent musical pursuits, including the September release of his album Hèloïse, which he celebrated with a scavenger hunt through Manhattan that spelled out the albums name. He also told us that he had a few more musical projects in the pipe. One of those was this video for the Hèloïse track "Blue Station," which premiered on The Fader last week.

Just as fascinating as his scavenger hunt (and, naturally, his web design work), the video employs a mysterious technology, "Colormind," which has its own equally mysterious website stating that it "uses SOUND, SHAPE, HEAT and subliminal COL☯R to condense TIME and bind EMOTIONAL RESPONSE." To demonstrate the technology, the video for "Blue Station" takes the classic Paul Newman Western Hud and "condenses" it into two and a half minutes. Here's The Fader's take:

It's dizzyingly beautiful and the swirling gradients over black-and-white are charmingly anachronistic, though reducing everybody's facial expressions to mood ring colors and debatably evocative shapes renders the actual film that whizzes by mostly illegible. Which is pretty much the fun part, how hard it is to figure out what's supposed to be simple.

Wall also has some live shows coming up. He'll be performing not to far from 3rd Ward at Diamond Mouth Surprise (30 Maujer St. #2C) this Saturday, January 14, and Williamsburg DIY venue Death By Audio on Monday, January 16. We don't know if he'll be able to recreate the Colormind phenomenon on stage, but we're sure he'll put on a fantastic show.

-- John Ruscher

Wheels Up // NYC Bike Share Exhibition Opens TONIGHT At The Center For Architecture

It's 2012, and you know what that means? Well, lots of things—election year, leap year, Summer Olympics, end of Mayan calendar—but it's also the year that New York City gets its own bike share. The program is scheduled to launch this summer, but you don't have to wait until it's warm again to get in on the action. In fact, you can learn all about the program tonight at the opening reception for Two Wheel Transit: NYC Bike Share, an exhibition at the Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place).

The free reception is happening from 6-8pm this evening and will feature a conversation with Janette Sadik-Khan, the NYC DOT Commissioner, and Alison Cohen, President of Alta Bicycle Share, the company that was selected to implement New York's program. The exhibition runs through February 4 and feature bike share bicycles from other programs around the world, as well as videos and other bike share information to give you a better idea of what the summer will bring.

Even if you can't make it tonight, you can get involved right now by suggesting a location for a bike share station via the program's interactive map. Naturally, 3rd Ward has already received a few votes, but cast yours now and make sure our voice is heard!

-- John Ruscher

ESSENTIAL EVENT // Brooklyn Night Bazaar Returns With A Massive Three-Day Extravaganza Starting Thursday

All images © JDS.

Back in October we told you about the first Brooklyn Night Bazaar, which took over the Dekalb Market for a lively Sunday evening. Now the bazaar is returning to Brooklyn for an even bigger blowout. This Thursday, Friday and Saturday the bazaar will take over a 40,000 square foot warehouse along the Williamsburg waterfront to present more than 100 local vendors, art installations, three solid nights of live music and plenty of local beer and wine. And all of this goodness (except the ticketed music space) is free and open to the public.

Check out the long list of vendors that you'll find at the bazaar here. If you still need to grab some gifts following our Handmade Holiday Craft Fair this past weekend, here's your chance! Pick up a Playbutton, some regionally adapted seeds, a killer skateboard and much more. And of course there will be tons of delicious local food as well.

The music program will include a DJ set by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy on Thursday, an epic rock lineup featuring Fucked Up, DOM, Big Troubles and more on Friday and a double whammy with The Hold Steady and Titus Andronicus on Saturday. Grab tickets for those shows here.

The most exciting part of this edition of the Brooklyn Night Bazaar, though, is where it'll take place. Renowned Danish architecture firm JDS have designed an incredible masterplan for the huge warehouse, drawing inspiration from Lars Von Trier's Dogville. Additionally, the folks behind Greenpoint's Bring To Light: Nuit Blanche festival will be curating an array of video installations and light projections.

Hit the jump to see renderings of JDS' Brooklyn Night Bazaar masterplan.

-- John Ruscher

HAPPENING TONIGHT // Vol.1 Brooklyn Serves Up Savory Bites Of Literary Culture

If you're into the Brooklyn literary scene, there's a good chance that you're already familiar with Vol.1 Brooklyn, a local blog that's picked up quite a following since it began in 2009. Vol.1 features everything from daily literature and culture links to book reviews and fiction. We particularly love Sunday Stories, an ongoing series of fiction and nonfiction pieces, and the Band Booking series, in which bands field questions about what they've been reading.

We caught up with the site's founder, Jason Diamond to ask him about Vol.1. "It was honestly just supposed to be a blog where myself and a few of my friends could talk about things we liked," he says. "Those things usually tend to be books and records, or things having to do with books and records. For some reason a lot of people started reading it, and I was also setting up reading events for the heck of it, and I thought, 'We should combine these things.'"

At Vol.1's readings, which have taken place at venues such as WORD, Brooklyn Winery and Bar Matchless, there's a good chance you'll catch a writer's work before it hits the big time. "It's awesome to watch a writer read for us from a manuscript they're working on, and then a year later they end up selling it," Diamond says. "Or when somebody tells me they wrote something for a Vol. 1 event that later ended up getting published for a really big magazine or journal. That's always really awesome." Vol.1 has also presented unique events such as The Greatest Three-Minute Food Stories and The Future of What?: A Panel on Punk in the 1990s.

It doesn't sound like Vol.1 is looking to turn a profit with its literary and culture explorations, but they wouldn't mind a little free caffeine. "If somebody would please foot the bill for all the coffee we drink to make Vol. 1 work, we'd gladly mention your product in our posts," Diamond says.

Tonight you can catch Vol.1 Brooklyn's latest literary throwdown, The Greatest 3-Minute Stories About The 90s, at Bar Matchless in Greenpoint. It will feature writers such as the Village Voice's Maura Johnston, Fluxblog's Matthew Perpetua, the Paris Review's Sadie Stein and Rob Tannenbaum, co-author of the acclaimed I Want My MTV.

-- John Ruscher

HANDMADE HOLIDAY GIFT IDEA #77 // With Roots Brings Jewelry To Life With Tiny Terrariums

 

Our Handmade Holiday Craft Fair is just a few days away, and it's no secret that it'll be full of irresistible gifts for all of your friends and family (and probably lots that you'll want to snatch up for yourself.) To keep you from getting too overwhelmed with such abounding awesomeness this Saturday, we're offering up a steady stream of sneak previews of some of that handmade goodness.

With Roots is a homegrown jewelry line. We say that not only because it's a Brooklyn-based, one-woman business, but also because each With Roots piece features a tiny terrarium with real plants growing inside. Sharon Goldberg, also an accomplished photographer, started With Roots about a year ago. "I had made some custom terrariums for a friend of mine," she says. "He liked them so much he told me he wished he could wear them! I did my research and made it happen, and With Roots was born."

With Roots pieces aren't mere novelties; they're well-made terrariums that are self-sustaining and designed to be worn on a daily basis. In Goldberg's own words, they're "the perfect way to wear nature." At the fair you'll find most of the pieces featured on the With Roots website, including an array of necklaces, a terrarium ornament and perfume bottle terrarium, as well as some one of a kind pieces and vintage glass terrariums. Get there early though, these will go fast.

Hit the jump for a couple more photos of Goldberg's amazing creations.

-- John Ruscher