Essential Event: 3rd Ward Member Matthew Murphy and Ryan Scott Oliver Combine Photography And Music For '35MM'

 

When 3rd Ward member and virtuosic dance photographer Matthew Murphy first told us about 35MM--an "evening-length multimedia musical" that he's been creating with composer Ryan Scott Oliver--the Kickstarter campaign for their project was around half of the way to its goal (and we were about the same distance from fully comprehending the unique and amazing production that they were putting together.)

Now that the Kickstarter campaign is finished, funded and then some, 35MM will take place on Wednesday, March 7 and Monday, March 12 at Galapogos Art Space in Dumbo. We caught up with Murphy again, and he helped us really wrap our heads around the piece. Read on below, check out some of Murphy's images and a video of one of Oliver's songs after the jump.

"We've lovingly coined the phrase 'Musical Exhibition' to describe 35MM," he says. The production brings the musical talents of Oliver, who is also currently writing the musical version of Freaky Friday for Disney Theatricals, and Murphy's photographic mastery, which we highlighted in January. "Full disclosure, we've been a couple for the past two-and-a-half years, so the evening really is a labor of love in the truest sense of the word," Murphy tells us.

"Originally Ryan went through my photos when we first started seeing each other and he was drawn to a handful of them so he created songs based on what he saw in the images," he says. "Sometimes the image would be literal and the story would connect immediately, while other times it would be a more abstract image that Ryan would spin a tale out of."

As those songs began to accumulate, Murphy shot more photographs for the project, and they presented the songs for the first time at Urban Stages in December of 2010. "A year later Ryan really began to shape the piece by adding musical transitions that reflect on the art of photography as a way of documenting time while also stopping time," Murphy says. "Each song is its own isolated story, but our hope is that the audience feels like for each four-minute burst they are immersed in a new world both visually and aurally."

"Some may be asking why we are doing a Monday and Wednesday evening and the reason is because we were determined to have some of Broadway's hottest young talent, which meant we had to work around their show schedules," he adds. And he's not kidding. 35MM's five-person cast features Lindsay Mendez (Godspell), Alex Brightman (Wicked), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Hair, Catch Me If You Can), Betsy Wolfe (Merrily We Roll Along, Everyday Rapture), and Ben Crawford (Shrek). "They are going to blow everyone's minds," he says.

"Our director, Jeremy Bloom, has been working with them over the past week and solidifying all of the ideas for how we will present the images," Murphy says. "We have a spectacular projection designer Aaron Rhyne who is creating an installation that will allow us to deconstruct some of the images when needed and present them in their full form at others."

Murphy himself will be finishing up the last images for the song "Why Must We Tell Them Why?" this week right here at 3rd Ward. Check out those images and video below and grab your tickets before they're gone.

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Karl Menninger

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.

Doing a Double-Take: The Ad Photos of Jonathan May

Looking through Jonathan May's ad campaign photos without the logos that usually adorn them is a privileged experience. Without the aid of catchy slogans to tell you what connections to make, you're free to create your own story--and May, who's quite the visual storyteller, gives you plenty of cues. He also has the unique ability to imbue potentially depressing subjects (the slums of Eastern Europe, the poverty of certain African countries) with striking beauty and, most importantly, humor. May sums it up best (from his bio):

Jonathan loves to find interesting characters and unconventional locations, using colour and treatments to heighten the visual experience. Always looking for subtle humour, his work visually engages us by drawing us in to share the experience of the subject.

May was just named one of the top 200 International Advertising Photographers for 2012/13 by Lurzer's Archive Magazine, an honor he also received in 2010/11. And his non-ad work isn't shabby either. "Embrace" (above) is currently on exhibit in London's National Portrait Gallery as part of the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize.

Meanwhile, if you've got shutter-finger, enroll in one of 3rd Ward's photography classes, from the basics of Learning Your Digital Camera to mastering Photoshop.

The Surrealist Set Design of Sarah Illenberger

If the work of Sarah Illenberger exudes a handmade, DIY quality that's because the Berlin-based set designer uses no real technology to create renderings of her pieces or make plans for fabrication. Illenberger sketches out her ideas with good old fashioned ink and paper, which makes her somewhat of an anomaly these days. Her materials of choice are familiar, it's the unexpected ways in which she uses them that offers a new meaning.

One of her most recent projects, photographs of sets Illenberger built for Architectural Digest, shows off her true, surrealist roots. There's the obvious references to Magritte (there's literally a picture of a person wearing a bowler hat), but her reappropriation of objects and her use of scale--matchsticks as big as tree branches, a die the size of an ottoman--has a nightmarish quality that falls somewhere between Eraserhead and Un Chien Andalou. 

Though as unnerving as some of her set pieces are, she seems to consistently add a touch of humor. The lobster perched on the black and white checkered bed is a chuckle in the direction of Dali. You can see this lighthearted touch in her other projects as well; like her ad for Kipling that turns a backpack into a friendly monster, or her work for Goodyear in which she turned a stack of tires into a totem pole. Long story short, her range is wide.

Feel like trying your hand in Illenberger's trade? Get in touch with your crafty, inner-surrealist with a few 3rd Ward classes in Dyeing, Silversmithing, Knitting with Plastic and Collage & Mixed Media.

And meanwhile, be sure to peruse Illenberger's other work here. 

Your Daily Insight as told by David Sedaris

When shit brings you down, just say 'fuck it', and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.

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

Your Daily Insight as told by Ayn Rand

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

Westward Ho! Brooklyn's Mark Reigelman Stakes a Tiny Claim in California

Mark Reigelman is an artist who likes to call attention to space, though not "outer space," more like our immediate space. Known both for cloaking a room in a dizzying display of black and white stripes to call our attention to architectural lines, as well as transforming stately buildings with huge, white weather balloons. Now Reigelman has declared his own manifest destiny, a pledge to "intrepidly claim and occupy space, regardless of hazard, existing occupants, inconvenience, daunting odds or common sense. Manifest Destiny! is single-minded in its objective: move West, claim territory, build a home." 

The Brooklyn-based artist went as far West as San Francisco, where he teamed up with local architect Jenny Chapman and engineer Paul Endres to build and install a small house on the side of The Hotel des Arts. A solar panel mounted to the roof powers lights inside (see image below) so you know when someone is home and strangers won't--ya know--rob the place. 

Using a 19th-century architectural style and vintage building materials, the structure is both homage to the romantic spirit of the Western Myth and a commentary on the arrogance of Westward expansion.

Interested in making a man-sized birdhouse of your own? Check out our woodworking and welding classes.

Manifest Destiny! will be up until October 2012.

-- Perrin Drumm

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

Your Daily Insight as told by Sumner Redstone

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.