FULL TBA FESTIVAL COVERAGE

On a broiling afternoon at Washington High School, a crowd of people stood around and watched a very slow, deliberate car accident. Three beige Chrysler minivans, perched on a pile of slowly inflating blue air mattresses, raised their boxy rear-ends to the sun. By the time the chorus of laboring fans had done their work, the vans were resting on their front bumpers, like three rotund synchronized swimmers diving out of a plushy blue fountain. I can’t say that sublimity abounded, but it was present and pervasive, like the smell of the thing at the back of the fridge that you still can’t find even though you’ve thrown away everything.
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I’m going to be a jerk and position this piece as the Oregon response to Cai Guo-Qiang’s 2008 flying exploding car installation, I Want to Believe, in which a series of identical cars were suspended from the roof of a Guggenheim gallery with neon explosions emanating from them as they appeared to flip in stop-motion, as though excerpted from the middle of an action movie. The cars in Lido are non-identical, as are the air mattresses, but the menace of the car as a thing that would just as soon crush you and blow you up as take you to the store for groceries is as undeniable as it is invisible. A car that is not positioned parallel to the ground is an inherently strange object, and while the vans in Lido are not going to snap their incredibly expensive Guggenheim cables and come crashing to the ground, you really hope that they have their parking brakes on, and that Sugarmann won’t bump one of them too hard as he scrambles among the bulging, wobbling mattresses to release the bulky vehicles from their cushiony stress positions.

The Oregon-ness of this piece cannot be attributed to its do-it-yourself cost-effectiveness alone. The creative use of camping gear, which somehow has avoided remark in everything written about the work so far, despite the ubiquitous display of costly outdoor lifestyle paraphernalia as a touchstone of Northwestern identity construction that far outweighs the social (and even monetary) value of many Portlanders’ cars, is also only part of the picture. I am uncompelled by this work as a reference to the hubris of the American auto industry; the “nosedive” metaphor is a bit banal, although things that are supposed to move themselves being laboriously moved by many tiny exterior engines is undeniably pretty funny.

What I really like about this piece, however, is the problem that is proposed, and the resulting solution. How do you half-tip some minivans, and keep them half-tipped? At the performance, the artist remarked on the expense and difficulty of righting a car that has fallen on its top or side, and it became clear that this piece is as much an engineering challenge as anything else; I also had a very interesting conversation with another attendee about artists who have been grievously injured or killed by their projects. Sugarmann is looking forward to the later stages of the performance, when he can stop being careful and really fuck some shit up. This is how we do it here, people, take note.

– Eleanor Ray
(Photography by Jamie Marie Waelchli)

CLICK HERE FOR FULL TBA PREVIEW GUIDE.

The story of the Cardiff Giant, a colossal “petrified man” unearthed from a fake archeological site in upstate New York in 1869, is a phenomenal object lesson for cultural production, and David Eckard’s ©ardiff performance makes the most of that potential. Rolling up on intentional and incidental audiences around town this week, Eckard uses this theme to expound on the value of wonder and mythmaking from a magnificently crafted traveling podium/snake-oil wagon/museum-quality display case for a (genuine?) Historical Artifact of Mystery!

Storytelling can be a tough sell to art audiences; notwithstanding the idolatry that Ira Glass is met with in any liberal intellectual enclave, sophisticated people who have been steeped in irony and postmodern detachment shrink from anything that resembles “reenactment,” as if Mickey Mouse had come up to them at Disneyworld and tried to hug them with sweaty, fake-furry mouse arms in sweltering Orlando heat. Actually, they love Mickey Mouse, because he is ironic, but history as a lived experience is something they cannot countenance. Eckard is no Ben Franklin impersonator, bellowing historical dialogue in the first person at disaffected high school field trips to Historic Philadelphia, but the specter of cheesiness lurks; the artist is aware of it, and it makes him strangely vulnerable and likeable.

On Thursday night, the TBA opening crowd at Washington High School was in full effect. The giant bouncy castle throbbed gently against the night sky, and every art hipster in Portland was crowded into the beer garden, yelling and checking each other out. David Eckard set up shop in an ill-lit part of the field, near enough to the beer garden to be dimly perceived through the hurricane fencing, and to be almost inaudible over the din of frenzied networking. He was not miced, nor did he use one of the outlandish, oversized megaphones that feature prominently in his earlier work. This was apparently an intentional choice to make his audience come closer and hang upon his lips, but it was a risky move for a rather unpolished, unprojecting and manifestly nervous performer. His get-up was outstanding (the man has build skills like whoa), but it was touch-and-go for a while whether he could channel the magnetic bravado and bluster of P. T. Barnum and the other hucksters involved in his tale, as he lost his place in the script several times and shuffled papers and props around to disguise his confusion.

Soon, however, the momentum of the story took over, and his somewhat amphibious approach to the narrative (neither immersed nor removed, alternately brash and bashful) became more endearing than embarrassing. It also didn’t hurt that there was a mystery box (or rather, a series of inset mystery boxes, which unfolded as the plot thickened) built into the podium — a trick that he openly acknowledged as a lure to bolster his somewhat lackluster oratory skills. His monologue was peppered with similar admissions, reveals and anachronisms, but he was genuinely and rightly fascinated with his subject, and teased out a lot of interesting conclusions about the role of evidence, display, media, intellectual property and popular imagination in creating art and other sensational hoaxes. He revealed that an ancestor of his was a master cabinetmaker who built the stage for P. T. Barnum’s replica of the fake giant, implicitly linking his own box-building practice with a family history of turning bits of grit into pearls, oyster-style. This deeply personal touch accompanied the emergence of the artifact, and though his concluding remarks veered a little cheesy again (the beauty of wonder and fiction, etc.), the work as a whole was compelling, courageous, and certainly food for thought.

My parting thought as I left the scene was whether his artifact and ancestral connection were indeed genuine, or in fact a third (fourth? I lost count) inset fiction; it would be a truly masterful piece of theater if he had led us all by the nose to a thing he had made up out of whole cloth. I would doubt it, however; the reflexive insecurity of the post-modern creative makes the outright, bald-faced lies of their similarly bewhiskered predecessors an impressive, impossible dream. And today’s audiences are too smart to be taken in by a chunk of gypsum… right?

– Eleanor Ray

Hello psychedelic neon world! Those adjectives have certainly been used ad nauseam recently to describe art trends, but Maya Hayuk and Jen Stark have combined their hyper-colored, geometrically-driven pieces to create a multi-disciplinary show — one which explores subtle differences within a symmetrical framework. Despite following similar thematic structures, Stark’s paper and wood sculptures seem to burst outwards while Hayuk’s acrylic and tempera paintings seem to encourage reflection on their inner details.

Visit the Show & Tell Gallery in Toronto (1161 Dundas St. West) now through June 12th, 2011.

maya hayuk

jen stark

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/

A bit of short notice on this one, as this show goes on in T-minus a couple hours, for the SE neighborhood First Friday Art Walk in Portland. However it’s totally worth writing about, the most interesting part actually taking place not today, but throughout the course of the month…

Opening tonight at Golden Rule (811 E Burnside, Portland, OR 97214), from 7:00pm to 10:00pm, is Invitation To Sleep! It is a dream-themed group show! I’m really into dreams, personally (I even have my own dream blog, where I write about all my dreams and invite others to submit theirs) — so this show is exquisitely exciting for me.

A floor-to-ceiling wall-hanging from Sally England, which looks more like a 2D object than a 3D one! Cotton rope and electroluminescent wire. Yum!

Tripped out ceramics of everyday objects, by Emily Counts.

Works on paper by Amanda Luna! This particular piece is not just a print or a drawing; it’s the result of repetitive stamping, with liquid gold leaf and acrylics, and the resulting characters might be Death or Mona Lisa. Who knows?

What tickles my fancy most, though, is an interactive portion of it. Golden Rule Gallery will be transforming their showroom into a bedroom, “complete with a walk-in closet full of lingerie, lounge wear, and other cozy clothing for cold February days.” It will also have a bed, of course, and if my greatest fantasies come true, a onesie, with footies, in my size. They will be inviting strangers, such as possibly yourselves, to spend an evening in the gallery. Those who do so will be invited to record their dreams, and filmmaker Alexis Powell will make stop-motion animated dream sequences to people’s dreams.

Visit the gallery tonight to sign up, or email the gallery. You can bet I will be participating. This is kiiiiiiiind of my dream come true. (Pun honestly not intended — that was the first phrase that came to mind.)

Jack Fischer Gallery does it again for their next art opening — which is TONIGHT — by bringing in Richard Bassett and Chris Crites to present new paintings. Entitled Cold Comfort, the show seems centered around a general idea of violence and crime, with guns playing a central role.

Chris Crites brings his intricately-detailed illustrations of convicts and deviants. This time, though, he also contributes “stick-up” notes he pulled from an L.A. crime photo book. And because Crites does no over-painting or under-painting, you can bet the precision seen in the “stick-up” notes is damn near perfection.

READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS CRITES, IN WHICH HE TALKS ABOUT HIS PROCESS.

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Meanwhile, Bassett’s works are painstakingly-sewn needlepoint pillows which, from afar, look like snapshots or scenes from hidden cameras. Their framing, in particular, gives them the appearance of being works of medium-format photography, each of their sewn blocks resembling pixels.