There were no bouncy castles to be found where I grew up, so I’ve been waiting all my life to finally get in on some inflatable jump room action. Naturally, when I arrived at the launch of TBA’s 2011 festival at Washington High School, I beelined to get to the head of the queue for Oscar’s Delirium Tremens, TBA’s humongous inflatable forced-air elephant, (and a likely mascot for this year’s festival.) Oscar was developed by Patrick J. Rock of Rocksbox Fine Art in North Portland. On TBA’s site, Oscar is described as evoking “all the ecstasy, absurdity, and ensuing nausea in the life of a modern artist.” I was one of the first to slide through Oscar’s clever anus hatch, into the vast interactive bounce chamber of his belly. It’s hard not to get carried away while encapsulated in a vibrant pink jump dome, so I bounced up and down until I was as nauseous and dizzy as a recent art school graduate opening their first statement from Sallie Mae.

Once my stomach chilled, and after a scare caused by the fake feet under one of the stalls in the unisex bathroom, I was ready to explore ON SIGHT Visual Art. In room 102, artist Michel Groisman organized playing cards that have images of different body parts. Players sat in circles and helped make each other into momentary body sculptures. Groisman’s piece illustrates one of the festival’s core strengths: its ability to induce interaction with both the art the participants.

I was captivated by Claire Fontaine’s matchstick map of the United States in room 204, made out of over 10,000 matchsticks. In addition to being a sculptural marvel, there’s an undeniable and provoking tension in its fragility as a symbol for the impending complications of our country’s future. Then there’s also the inherent suspense of standing next to something with the perceived potential to burst in flames at any moment. Rumor has it that the original plan was to light the map on fire. Ambiguity about the final incarnation of the map is adding to its mystique.

In room 202, Kate Gilmore’s Sudden As A Massacre involves a video loop of five woman, all in identical floral dress, dismantling an enormous five thousand pound cube of wet clay. The performance occurred one month ago in the same room where the work is now being shown, so visitors are also able to peruse the physical evidence of the performance. You can see marks on the wall where they flung the debris while they toiled, along with their white strappy sandals, now ensconced within the hardened clay. It’s clear that this was a grueling endeavor. No matter at which point you arrive in the video loop, the ladies perpetually grow evermore exhausted as they claw, fling, moan and pant, up until the anticlimactic ending.

The opening’s festivities concluded with a high octane performance by Portland’s Bounce music favorite Beyondadoubt. Once her aggressive booty originals got rolling, the crowd went crazy. A gorgeous hard-bodied gentleman took the stage and went to work on a rhinestone covered chair, wearing an elaborate feathered headdress and assless chaps. The music throbbed and swelled, and everybody bumped to the auditory jolts. By the time the show concluded, diverse booties of all sizes and genders were twerking all over the place.

- Jamie Waelchli

Michael Stipe sings in R.E.M., sure, but he’s also an art school dropout who produced movies such as Saved, American Movie, and Being John Malkovich. The Creators Project recently caught up with him to discuss this visual work, his three-dimensional sculpture, photographs as source material, documenting Patti Smith, digital technology, Douglas Coupland and those crappy plastic chairs.

Filmmaker Lance Bangs takes an intriguing look at Stipe who talks about how the medium for art is just as important, if not more important, than the finished piece itself. Aside from his art, Stipe discusses his photography book Two Times Into: On The Road With Patti Smith, as well as his latest project, FutureEpicenter.com, where Michael sought to discover how he sees the world through a digital camera vs. though a film camera by taking a digital picture every day for one year in 2007.

About The Creators Project
Launched in 2010, The Creators Project is an ongoing multi-year program that is dedicated to identifying leading artists and enabling them to showcase their works and artistic visions through technology and interactive media. The program includes The Studio, an international event series, a documentary TV series, multi-disciplinary collaborative projects and the video website, TheCreatorsProject.com.

According to the introductory statement to the Festival’s website, “Festival of Ideas for the New City is a major new collaborative initiative in New York, involving scores of Downtown organizations working together to harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore ideas that will shape it. The Festival will include a three-day slate of symposia; an innovative StreetFest along the Bowery; and over eighty independent projects and public events.”

In this guide, we’ve picked out some of the most incredible gallery-hosted events taking place during the course of this festival, serving as a filter for the best, so you don’t have to! We did not include, however, panels and conferences which are going on, so it is highly recommended that visit the Festival website at www.festivalofideasnyc.com to see those, as well as festival events we have not listed here.

Stay tuned for our post regarding Streetfest-related installations and happenings, taking place on May 7th!

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past fits and future pulls: james Fuentes llc

Daniel Subkoff and Will Chancellor offer for disassembly a large clay sculpture embedded with native seeds. Remains will be woven into the Bowery environs the following day using boustrophedon technology.
Location: Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center (107 Suffolk St, btwn Rivington & Delancey Sts)
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-593
Date: May 7th, all day
More details: http://www.jamesfuentes.com/
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borderland: smartspaces

Curated by Andrea Hill, Borderland borrows from the format of television and the democratic ideas behind community access networks, airing a video art program that includes interactive works on public view 24/7. Featuring videos and interactive pieces by Benjamin Crotty, Noah Feehan / AKA, Rainer Ganahl, Tatiana Kronberg, Nour Mobarak, Adam Shecter.
Location: 200 Lafayette Street, btwn Broome & Kenmare Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-3756
Date: May 1st through June 1st, 24 hours a day
More details: http://www.smartspaces.org/
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Richard Long: Flow and Ebb: sperone westwater

Artist Richard Long creates an homage to nature in urban installations. Drawing made with river mud and sculpture of native stone generate a reconfigured nature. According to Sperone Westwater’s press release: “Long presents a text work Flow and Ebb, Rise and Fall in the gallery’s Moving Room, which travels between the second and fourth floors, referencing the motion of tides. The third floor features wall-sized text works that narrate Long’s recent outdoor walks and experiences, such as Human Nature Walk (2011) from his 21-day walk in South Africa. In Megalithic to Subatomic: From Carnac to Cern (2008), Long describes the extreme range of materials in nature – from large-sized stones to the minute atoms in particle physics.”
Location: 257 Bowery, between East Houston & Stanton Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-1656
Date: May 7th, from 10:00am to 6:00pm
More details: http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html
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URBAN TAPESTRY A Vision for the New City: theater for the new city

Urban Tapestry engages the public by weaving visual and performing arts into a 2-day event focusing on preservation and innovation. According to the website, this will be “a multidisciplinary exhibition, weaves visual, conceptual, and performing arts into a two-day event that combines preservation and innovation, building a base for a heterogeneous and sustainable city using visual art, installations, music and performance to engage the public,” covering topics as diverse as “Art & Design, storytelling and local history, party (reception), Exhibition, Lecture/Discussion, and Performance.”
Location: Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, between East 9th & East 10th Streets
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-549
Date: May 7th, from 10:00am to 11:00pm
More details: http://www.artistasdeloisaida.org/
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Cronocaos, an exhibition by Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: new museum

Cronocaos explores the simultaneity of preservation and destruction, which obliterates any sense of a linear evolution of time. The exhibition will take place in a partially renovated space adjacent to the New Museum. And yes, it costs money, but thanks to expert curation, it’s always a good time at The New Museum.
Location: 231 Bowery, between Stanton & Rivington Sts
ADMISSION: $12
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-667
Date: May 7th, 11:00am to 6:00pm
More details: http://www.newmuseum.org
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Robert Melee: This is For You: invisible-exports

A looped screening shows five dancers interpreting nine physical acts including “imitate a chicken” and “lick your biceps” for Melee’s 2003 performance at Judson Church in an ode to a new era of performance art.
Location: 14A Orchard Street, between Hester & Canal Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-1665
Date: May 7th and May 8th, 11:00am to 11:59pm
More details: http://www.invisible-exports.com/
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Floating Constructs: Number 35 Gallery

Alexa Kreissl proposes a sculpture on outdoor surfaces, creating unfamiliar and multifaceted environments. Kreissl will present an installation incorporating sculpture, drawing, light and shadow. The shadows of a second, indoor sculpture by Kreissl are projected at various angles on the wall.
Location: 141 Attorney St between Stanton & Rivington Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-1577
Date: May 7th through June 12th, 12:00pm to 6:00pm
More details: http://www.numberthirtyfive.com/
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HOMENESS: Y Gallery

Three artists examine their own concepts of home in a series of activities based on the notion of NYC as a multicultural city with a big population constantly on the move. Performances by Ryan Brown and Jano Cortijo. Video-interviews by Cecilia Jurado. Installation inside and outside the gallery by Tom Fruin, pictured above. Installation by Antonio la Rosa. Discussion with leaders of local shelters.
Location: 335A Bowery Street Basement, between East 3rd Street & East 2nd Street
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-651
Date: May 7th and May 8th, 12:00pm to 6:00pm
More details: http://www.ygallerynewyork.com/
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The Self Illuminating City: Allegra LaViola Gallery

Inside, let yourself be overwhelmed by brightness as Timothy Hutchings fills the space with light. Outside, get tempted by Jennifer Catron & Paul Outlaw’s Fish Fry Truck and Crawfish Boil.
Location: 179 East Broadway, between Jefferson & Rutgers Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-546
Date: May 7th and May 8th, 12:00pm to 9:00pm
More details: http://www.allegralaviola.com/
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Urban Disorientation Game: christina ray gallery

Rediscover NYC as you are blindfolded and escorted to an unknown location. Remove the blindfold, make maps, explore the surroundings, and attempt to make it back to home base.
Location: Starting point at NE corner of Bowery & Rivington at noon. (Participants are asked to commit for the entire time.)
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-562
Date: May 7th, 12:00pm to 7:00pm
More details: http://www.christinaray.com/
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loophole: frosch&portmann

Swiss artist Raffaela Chiara responds to her New York experience with an illuminated mountain sculpture featuring a sound-filled cave; while drawings and photographs pinned to the wall become a personal map of the city.
Location: 3 Stanton Street, between Forsyth & Eldridge Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-585
Date: May 7th and May 8th, 12:00pm to 11:59pm
More details: http://froschportmann.com/
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1000 Hearts by Kristen Zwicker: Michael Mut Gallery

Prepare to embrace the cheesy and heartwarming! Videos and a multimedia participatory installation document artists taking to the streets of New York, distributing stickers that say “Love Yourself,” and hand-folded origami hearts with messages of what people love about themselves. Exhibition through 5/28.
Location: 97 Avenue C, between East 6th Street & East 7th Street
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-1628
Date: May 7th through May 28th, 12:00pm to 11:59pm
More details: http://www.michaelmutgallery.com/
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Group Show: Kin and Daimond Marchand: Kammeropolis: sloan fine art

Kin features several New York painters who have come of age in a heterogeneous time. Daimon Marchand invites viewers into Kammeroplis, an installation comprised of technological and organic elements.
Location: 128 Rivington Street, at Norfolk Street
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-631
Date: May 7th through May 28th, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
More details: http://www.sloanfineart.com/
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David Shapiro: Money Is No Object: Sue Scott Gallery

Embarrassingly personal and strangely generic, David Shapiro redrew and repainted all his personal bills and receipts for one year, revealing the common denominator of consumption as both distinctive and banal.
Location: 1 Rivington Street, between Bowery & Chrystie Streets
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-636
Date: May 7th through May 28th, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
More details: http://www.suescottgallery.com/
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Trystette+Bobbie Rae Present Solcycle: FusionArts Museum

Trystette+BobbieRae group RE-DE-CON-STRUCT the soul of their music/projection/fused art creating an artistic phoenix of multi-tiered communication and interaction, recovery through collaborative creative renewal. Art/music exhibition.
Location: 57 Stanton Street, between Forsyth & Eldridge Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-3194
Date: May 7th, 6:00pm to 11:59pm
More details: http://www.fusionartsmuseum.org/ + http://www.trystette.com/
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Shhhhhhhhhhhh: the underground library

Alternative to the “get anything, anytime” ethos of Internet spectacle, this series allows Festival-goers to check out multi-media books published as takeaway heirlooms, encouraging human contact through the distribution of art.
Location: Old School, 233 Mott Street between Prince & Spring
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-644
Date: May 7th and May 8th, 6:00pm to 2:00am
More details: http://www.theundergroundlibrary.org/
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School Nite: the they co

Restrictive allocation of city space foster partnerships between otherwise unrelated groups. Here, a vacant school is bequeathed to artists and cultural organizations for site-specific installations, performances, discussions and lectures implicating hopes, insights, and fears for a Future City. There are an endless, endless number of participants, as though this were a festival in and of itself! Don’t miss this! Included projects can be seen at the “more details” link below.
Location: 233 Mott Street, between Prince & Spring Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-3565
Date: May 7th to May 8th, 6:00pm to 4:00am
More details: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/program#event-3565
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Birds and Bees: Flight of Fantasy: ny studio gallery

Russian-based American artist Yuliya Lanina works with C. Eule Dance Company on Flight Of Fantasy a performance art piece that envisions “a sustainable balance between urban development and colonies of butterflies.” Considering her artwork features mythologically and symbolically-affected characters comprised of unlikely building blocks and body parts, you can expect this performance to be most interesting.
Location: 154 Stanton Street, between Suffolk & Clinton Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-621
Date: May 7th, 7:00pm to 7:30pm
More details: http://www.nystudiogallery.com/
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Survival AIDS/Hunter Reynolds: Performance & Panel: Visual AIDS and Participant Inc.

Artist and AIDS activist Hunter Reynolds enacts mummification while a symposium and discussion panel discuss how HIV and AIDS have shaped NYC’s queer community.
Location: 253 E Houston St, btwn Norfolk & Suffolk Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-2465
Date: May 7th, 7:00pm to 11:59pm
More details: http://www.visualaids.org/ + http://www.participantinc.org/
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Flash:Light: Nuit Blanche New York

Over twenty artists working in site-specific light, sound and projection art invite you to discover, drift and linger along an illuminated path of re-configured public spaces, temporary installations and performances through the night. Artists (list in formation): Vito Acconci, Rita Ackermann, Hisham Bharoocha, Marco Brambilla, Antoine Catala, Mitchell Joachim, Chris Jordan, Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Jason Krugman, Jules Marquis, Ohad Meromi, Cary Ng, Miho Ogai, Aïda Ruilova, Ursula Scherrer, Claire Scoville, Kant Smith, Softlab, Ryan Uzilevsky / Farkas Fülöp (Light Harvest), Adriana Varella, Guido van der Werve. The above video is Twenty-First Century Bonfire, an installation by Jason Eppink, from last year’s Bring To Light festival. Visit their website to see just a sampling of the amazing things they’ve done in the past. There will also be music inside the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, in conjunction with this event.
Location: New Museum and Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, Mulberry Street between Houston & Prince Sts
Map it: http://www.festivalofideasnyc.com/map#event-618
Date: May 7th, 8:00pm to 11:59pm
More details: http://www.bringtolightnyc.org/

Head down to the Pioneer Place Mall in Portland, Oregon this Sunday, January 30th, from 1:00pm to 6:00pm! Trade Gallery — in conjunction with The Aspens and Recess Gallery — for a closing show with interdisciplinary performances, music, interaction, and crafts.

The goal? DIFFUSION OF PERFORMER/VIEWER HEIRARCHY! Everything must go, and everyone must get involved!!

J.P. Huckins will take on live video recording as performance. With several video stations, he will subvert the spectator and recorder dynamic. This reversal will include live video feed along with otherless immediate methods of “viewing the viewer.”

Vivian Hua‘s “Temporary Sight Removal” workshop will allow audience members to participate in tours of the other four senses. While sight-removed, attendees will have the option to heighten their sense of touch by reading Braille literature, while the text is translated to them verbally; they’ll be able to experience smell with a guided tour of the Body Shop, along with a host of other possiblities. See the complete list of activities here.

Dani Cardia‘s “Page Turning” allows attendees to the exhibition to move through the video narrative by turning the pages of an empty book. Employing electronics and mild computer technology, an interaction with the objects articulates the imaginative expectations we may hold for common-placed accessories (a primary colored stocking cap, a sketchbook, a video camera). The combination of real-time reaction with simple familiar gestures is an attempt to explore the hopes we may harbor for a more engagingly mundane experience.

Experimental/Performative Catering, via “Performativity Parlour” and “Synonym Buns,” will be provided by Tori Abernathy, the show’s curator.

Others are welcome to contribute.

LIVE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES:
Matt & Matt at 4:00
and Salam at 5:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBX_6asTByM

ART OBJECTS FOR SALE BY:
Kat Seale with handmade metal jewelry
Delphine Bedient – with hand-printed cards and zines.
Jamie Edwards with Limousine Shrinky-Dink Jewelry
Andrew Barton and Aria Mikkola-Sears with distribution from Open Face Records

All this will accompany the existing installations as part of The Aspens Project at Trade.

Go to Roq La Rue (2312 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA) on January 14th. It will be incredible.

The opening, which will feature the mixed media photography and sculpture of the ever-talented Mandy Greer, the show sees Roq La Rue transformed into a multi-chamber installation. Textiles are sewn, knotted, and manipulated to create divine worlds. Greer has been getting the bulk of her attention around the Pacific Northwest so far — in many ways — but it’s time the world knows about her talents.

These images below are of Greer’s work, of course, but they are not the pieces in the gallery. You’ll have to actually go to see the real deal. (I am screaming in my head as I write this.)

Here’s the artist statement, lifted from Roq La Rue’s website, if you haven’t salivated enough yet:

“Honey and Lightening” is a show of installation chambers, sculptures of talismanic birds and a series of staged photographs all revolving around examining the mercurial nature of human desire. The substances honey and lightening both have literary, mythical and archetypal references to the occurrence and evolution of desire and it’s fading. I see one as the slow ooze of pleasure and the other as the dangerous, uncontrollable and inexplicably instant occurrence of magnetism between two bodies.

Two installation chambers create full body experiences of these ephemeral phenomena and crystallize them in tangible form as a way to signify the human longing for a perfect stasis of experience – which is impossible as emotion begins to degrade, evolve, fold in upon itself after the initial strike.

The Honey Moon chamber is a 10 foot tall mirrored jewelry box spanning 12 feet, enclosing a giant engorged golden chandelier formation encrusted with tens of thousands of gold-colored trinkets – the cheapest of the trashiest materials but representing the purest element from the bowels of the earth that has induced lust to the point of violence since pre-history. This giant mass of gold, as well as the body of the viewer, is reflected infinitely in 35 mirrored panels that create a simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive encounter that memorializes a temporary event. The mythology of honey, a bodily fluid produced from flowers, has long been associated with the ooze of erotic perfection. An ambrosial month of drinking honey-wine has followed the wedding ceremony since the Pharaohs. But locked up in the folklore of this transitional period is that the delirium ends and the state of bliss is forever sought after.

The Cherry Tree Root chamber is, in a way, a reverence to my own experience with Colpo di fulmine — “love at first sight” in Italian, which literally translate to “lightning strike”, and a craving to re-experience a place and time that no longer exists. Recently digging a 16 foot deep foundation hole, my husband and I removed 72 tons of dirt from our property to build a studio, exposing deep and gnarled roots that seems like frozen solidified lightening, long forgotten, dug up by us to lay the foundation for the rooms we hope we’ll die in. The root chamber is like entering this underground world hidden from view of long- ago electric ephemeral desires that have now turned into strong and sturdy roots- not as flashy as lightening but quietly enduring and growing. The roots are battered beautiful twisting accumulations of crocheted scraps of fabric I’ve saved for years, old ropes and remnants of past installations, hand-spun hair, rabbit fur and old clothes, all coated in the dirt from below my family’s foundation.”

Seattle’s First Thursday is massive; here are some selections from some galleries we regularly enjoy. And, can I just say? Seattle is really rockin and rollin this month, with tons of really excellent and innovative exhibitions. We just did the post for Portland’s First Thursday, and Seattle’s is making Portland’s look like child’s play.

james harris gallery

http://www.jamesharrisgallery.com

Don’t mind Maki Tamura; she’s just killing it, as always. She just knows all too well how to incorporate vintage imagery and intricate, lace-like detail into her mixed media works. Her precision is wonderful, and her works have evolved to become more brilliantly composed than ever. This show also features an installation by Tamura. She deserves her own post. It will come soon.

greg kucera gallery

http://www.gregkucera.com

Chris Engman creates sculptures, often from found industrial objects, and photographs them. The pictures say it all, and all of these prints are limited edition.

flatcolor gallery

http://www.flatcolor.com/

Seattle street artist Baso Fibonacci gets busy with his solo show. There isn’t a preview on Flatcolor Gallery’s website just yet, but it’ll be a good one.

foster white gallery

http://www.fosterwhite.com

David Alexander’s pencil and paper works.

rock dement

http://www.rockdement.com

I’m not entirely sure what this gallery is about, but this is a group show of “mixfixed” toys, and hell, the show is called Frippery, Bibelot, and a little sugar for the homeless. Like, seriously, it’s a benefit show. See the flyer.

punch gallery

http://www.punchgallery.org/

Mark Koven is going to have a multi-disciplinary installation featuring new media works that will somehow find a way to incorporate all of the following: “science and sociology converged with sculpture, physical computing, film, photography, sound and performance.” This is an installation that needs to be seen to be understood. Here’s more quotes from Punch Gallery about it:

“… he takes inspiration from the life of the French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Falling into the Sky focuses on the “essential” as experienced through the merging of a child and adult’s perspectives. Utilizing such materials as bubbles, sound, electronics and wind turbines, the work in the exhibition will also highlight Koven’s fascination with the natural and manmade facets of flight. Included in the exhibition is an interactive piece titled Draw me a Sheep. This work recalls the moment in Le Petit Prince when the main character of the book and the downed aviator first meet. As he approaches the pilot, he asks, “Draw me a Sheep.” What follows in the book is a dialogue that speaks towards Ferdinand de Saussure’s philosophy on Semiotics. As with their conversation, so happens with the voice recognition software in the piece, it listens but makes mistakes transcribing what is actually spoken.”

monarch contemporary

http://www.monarchcontemporary.com

Mixed media works by Rangel De Maria. Aah!

la familia gallery

http://www.lafamiliagallery.org

This is one of three exhibitions going on at La Familia Gallery this month, and features the etched, whimsical works of Mirka Hokkanen. Think fuzzy, lovely woodland creatures.