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

Mu Pan, Our Summer Open Call Winner, Finishes His Epic 'One Thousand and One Noon'

A detail of Mu Pan's One Thousand and One Noon

Last month we gave you an early peak at some of the amazing work that our Summer Open Call winner Mu Pan will be presenting in his March 23 solo show at 3rd Ward--including the first panel of his One Thousand and One Noon, an epic watercolor work that takes its title from One Thousand and One Nightsand High Noon. 

Pan has now finished that piece's other two panels, and...just...wow. There's really no way to adequately describe this astounding triptych, so we'll just let you explore some of its vast expanses, intense images and rich themes in the details below.

For more on Mu Pan, watch a video profile after the jump and check out this a recent interview by Japan Cinema. And, of course, mark those calendars for March 23—you truly don't want to miss this one.

-- John Ruscher

Upcoming Show // Open Call Winner Mu Pan Brings His Epic Art To 3rd Ward In March

We announced the winners of our Fall 2011 Open Call last week, but we're also excited to tell you that we've set the date for a solo show by Mu Pan, the Grand Prize winner of our Summer Open Call. The Taiwan-born, Brooklyn-based artist will be showing his work at 3rd Ward on March 23.

Pan tells us that he's working nonstop to get finish up the artwork that he'll be presenting, including some massive oil paintings and watercolor works. One of those is the astounding One Thousand and One Noon, pictured above. "This is about America entering the Islamic world, and the bitter war we have been fighting for the past decade," he says. "I am a huge fan of Indian miniture paintings, so I wanted to do something like that with the subject of what is going on today in that part of the world.  I used a very narrow and ignorant view point to make this project, because I want to emphasize how ignorant people are about Muslims in this country, especially this city. As you can see, I love to put what I like in my images, so this time I borrowed so many elements from those Sinbad series movies I loved when I was very little."

The scene above, which is only one panel of the One Thousand And One Noon triptych, took Pan about two months to finish. He'll have all three ready panels ready for March's show. The piece's title, Pan tells us, is a combination of One Thousand And One Nights, the famous collection of folk tales, as well as the classic Western film High Noon.

As our Grand Prize winner, Pan was also featured in Art Tapei back in August, and he tells us that it was a great experience, though somewhat sentimental. "I've only gone back three times since I left there in 1997, and I can still feel the love and acceptance from my people after all these years," he says. He sold most of the work that he brought for the fair and was featured in an article about Art Taipei in one of Taiwan's major newspapers.

Hit the jump for a few details from One Thousand and One Noon, as well as a sneak peek at more work that Pan will be presenting here. Mark your calendar for his show on March 23.

-- 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

TEACHER SHOW // Iviva Olenick Embroiders a Love Letter to Our Borough

Coney IslandFor those of us with any textile experience, embroidery seems like the most detail oriented art for only the most patient people. Iviva Olenick is one of those people. In addition to teaching 3rd Ward's Extraordinary Embroidery class, Olenick is a pioneer in narrative embroidery, much of which is featured on her blog, Were I So Besotted. We love Olenick's textile storytelling, and we think you should see it in-person.

So heed our words:

"The Brooklyn Love Exchange: A Portrait of Brooklyn Romance," featuring Olenick's work is on view at the Muriel Guepin Gallery in Cobble Hill until November 13.

Olenick says the exhibit is a sort of "love map" of Brooklyn inspired by her own ex-boyfriends and love stories collected from interviews with other Brooklynites. Also on view is "FiberGraf," a collaboration with graffiti artist Jon Baker. Baker tags, Olenick stitches; work that seems like a BK love story in its own rite. So if you have a new guy or gal you want to impress, swing by this weekend and fall in love with Olenick's totally unique vision of New York.

Here's one more while we're at it:

Beschert Taxi--Layla Schlack

TONIGHT + FRIDAY // 3rd Ward Instructor Phillip Stearns' Multiple Exhibitions

Entity I, from "Subliminal Machines"It's safe to say Phillip Stearns--electronics artist and our own renewable power sources teacher extraordinaire--is on something of a roll. Stearns has an exhibition opening tonight, Nov. 3rd followed by an entirely different one tomorrow. 

Tonight's installation "Subliminal Machines" opens over at Rabbithole in DUMBO. It takes a look at circuits as live organisms via an interactive light and sound installation, digital imagery created by short-circuiting a camera and audio-visual compositions.

As part of his artist statement, Stearns claims "By making electronics physical, I invert the paradigm of miniaturization which constantly seeks to embed ever powerful computational devices in increasingly smaller spaces, choosing to explode the physical attributes of the circuits to give them a bodily presence." He'll be giving a talk about the installation November 18, 7-9 p.m. The show will be up until November 28. 

One of Stearns's pieces from "Algorithmic Unconscious"

If that gets you charged up, check out Stearns' work in Friday, Nov. 4th's "Algorithmic Unconscious," a collaborative project debuting at Williamsburg's Devotion Gallery. The show studies the overlap of noise in electronic machines, random fluctuations of sound, the interactions of humans and machines and how messing with a system's algorithms can create dischord. In other words, a fine example of Glitch art. This one's also open until November 28. 

We obviously love to support our own, but Stearns' new work looks (and we're sure, we'll sound) amazing, so we hope to see you out there too.

--Layla Schlack.

BEAT NITE // TONIGHT: 3rd Ward Teacher Robin Grearson Presents 'Is Between' During Bushwick Art Crawl

Artworks by Sarah McDougald Kohn (left) and Liz Ainslie (right).

Tonight the Bushwick art scene will stay up late for the fifth installment of Beat Nite, a bi-annual "half art stroll, half bar crawl," with local galleries and art spaces open from 6-10pm. There's lots of cool stuff going on, but we're particularly excited about Is Between, an exhibition curated by 3rd Ward teacher Robin Grearson at The Active Space.

The follow-up to Grearson's curatorial debut during Bushwick Open Studios back in June, Is Between will feature work by Brooklyn artists Liz Ainslie and Sarah McDougald Kohn. We caught up with Grearson before she headed off to start installing the exhibition and asked her what's in store for tonight. Hit the jump to find out.

The choice of pairing Ainslie and McDougald Kohn was a natural one, not merely because they went to grad school together, but because they share similar creative approaches. "Liz and Sarah work intuitively and make decisions in the moment, but what's exciting to me is having the opportunity to show the results of their decisions, side by side," Grearson says. "The relationships the artists discovered between their work was found, not created, and I think it will be interesting for a viewer to discover these relationships too."

Both artists deal with objects in unconventional and unexpected ways. "Sarah’s sculptures are really fun; to me, many of them challenge our either/or thinking about objects as being either artistic or functional," Grearson says. "And Liz’s paintings invest shapes and lines with a sense of volume, despite the fact that the shapes are actually abstract and incompletely rendered, "she adds. "This forces me to consider the source of my impressions."

That unique, intuitive and artistic approach is also reflected in the title of the exhibition. "Is Between describes the liminal nature of the objects depicted and created by the artists," Grearson says. "It is a sentence fragment that exists in the present tense but is unresolved. This language felt right to all of us as a way to communicate something specific about the paintings and sculptures."

Look at a couple more images of work by Ainslie and McDougald Kohn below and check out the exhibition tonight from 6-10pm at The Active Space (566 Johnson Ave). Also, Grearson will be at 3rd Ward next month to teach the class Learn to Love Your Artist Statement (or at least make friends).

Liz Ainslie

Sarah McDougald Kohn

-- John Ruscher

ESSENTIAL EVENT // THIS SUNDAY: Christopher Rini And BBOX Radio Team Up For Beastie, Biggie, And Beyond

 

Back during our Wind-Up mixer in June, artist and 3rd Ward member Christopher Rini met the folks at BBOX Radio. They both enjoyed each other's work, and four months later they're collaborating on Biggie, Beasties, and Beyond, an exhibition at BBOX Radio. It opens this Sunday, October 30 at 5pm with a lively mix of music and art.

Hit the jump to learn more about Rini's work and the exhibition.

For the show's inspiration, Rini turned toward to two landmark Brooklyn albums, the Beastie Boys' Licensed To Ill and Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready To Die. "I picked two iconic albums that have aged in complex ways," he says. "The Beastie's debut LP featured fold out album art, which I used to love as a kid, so I took the opportunity to address the entire image, with all of its 21st century implications. It's a joke from the past that now has a sense of foreboding."

"The Biggie piece is similar, though with a more somber, final tone," he adds. "The stark composition no longer announces the arrival of arguably the best MC we've ever heard. His predictions, boasts and stories are all we have left. The text that once announced his name and boasted of his fearlessness, now simply mark his entry and exit from the world."

Rini renders these images using "wood stained glass," a style he's been exploring and honing since 2009. "It involves mostly industrial items, where the wood is engraved & burned, and then stained & dyed, usually with a polyurethane finish," he explains.

Taking up a musical theme is natural, as Rini's long been an active musician, playing with Brooklyn's The=Equation for over a decade. During Sunday's opening he'll play drums with a new group, Resonance & Behavior, who'll be making their live debut. "The instrumentation is all electronic, drums, piano and cello, and our repertoire includes Chopin, Philip Glass, Portishead and a few original compositions by our cellist, Elizabeth Glushko," he says.

Check out Biggie, Beasties, and Beyond this Sunday at BBOX Radio, which is located at the Dekalb Market. It starts at 5pm and the music kicks off at 6pm. Rini's artwork will stay up through November 9.

-- John Ruscher 

SATURDAY // Plug Into Some Locally Made Guitar Pedals At The CMJ Stomp Box Exhibition

Hundreds of bands are playing New York this week as part of the annual CMJ Music Marathon, but there's only one showcase where you can pick up a guitar and jam, even if you're not in a band.

Organized by local music magazine The Deli, the NYC StompBox Exhibit runs through tonight, Saturday, October 22 at Googies Lounge and Ludlow Guitar in the Lower East Side. The exhibit will feature tons of different guitar effects pedals from companies both big and small. Bring your guitar along (or use one of the ones that they'll have on hand),  plug into one of the pedal boards that'll be set up, and you can start wailing away like Hendrix or Clapton or whomever your favorite guitarist happens to be.

While bigger brands like Moog, Line 6 and Digitech will be represented, some awesome local companies will also be showing off their stuff. One of those is Death By Audio, a boutique hand-made effects company based in Williamsburg. Founded by Oliver Ackermann, guitarist and singer for the band A Place To Bury Strangers, Death By Audio's pedals include Robot, an "8-bit resynthesizer," Interstellar Overdriver and and Apocalypse, a five channel distortion box. They've also created custom pedals for bands including U2, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco and Lightning Bolt. Fridgebuzzz, another Brooklyn-based company, makes the Land of the Rising Fuzzz, a versatile fuzz distortion pedal. Also on hand will be pedals from Long Island's Pigtronix and New Jersey's Eventide.

The exhibition is free, but if you want to make sure you get a chance to try out the pedals, RSVP for a priority pass.

-- John Ruscher