Valley Curtain
A portrait of an artist this moving is extremely rare.
Described as “the finest film I have ever seen about an artist and his work” by writer New Yorker art critic Calvin Tomkins, Christo’s Valley Curtain, a short documentary that celebrates the dramatic hanging of a huge orange curtain between two Colorado mountains and the effects it has on the local community, can be viewed on YouTube.
Directed by legendary documentarians The Maysles Brothers, generally known for helping foster the direct cinema movement in the United States, the film was the first in a set of five (presently) films on the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, most well known, I suspect, for The Gates, their large scale project covering the walk ways of Central Park with gates of orange fabric. If you like the film linked above, I suggest you go out and buy the DVD set, and even make a stop at The Maysles Cinema next time you visit New York.
No Soul for Sale
No Soul for Sale: A Festival of Independents
Location: X-initative
Opening Reception: June 23, 6-9 pm with a performance by Martin Soto Climent.
Opening time: June 24 – 28, 2009, 1-9 pm
X has invited more than 30 art spaces to travel to New York City to present themselves, their programs and the artists they support. With a gesture of radical hospitality, X will provide free space to all participants within the premises of the X building. The participants will be allowed to show whatever they choose, be it art, performances, publications, videos, or simply themselves. In addition to the exhibition space, X will make available to each participant, for a one-hour period, a dedicated performance area on the ground floor in which participants can organize performances, presentations, discussions and music programs.
Neither a fair nor an exhibition, No Soul for Sale is a convention of individuals and groups who have devoted their energies to keeping art alive. The Festival will be an exercise in coexistence: organizations will exhibit alongside each other without partitions or walls. As on the set of the legendary Lars Von Trier’s movie Dogville, participants will be assigned spaces that are only marked on the floor, creating a map of an imaginary city of art, where distances and hierarchies are abolished.
Below you will find a list of participants:
DeCordova Biennial Set for 2010
Announced today is the DeCordova Sculpture Park & Museum Biennial, opening in January 2010. DeCordova Assistant Curator Dina Deitsch said, “The goal of the 2010 Biennial is to provide a snapshot of the broad range of art practices that are currently happening in New England, while being mindful of the traditions that feed those very practices.”
The exhibition was organized by Dietsch with the help of an advisory board that includes Mark Bessire, Director, Portland Museum of Art, George Fifield, Director, Boston CyberArts Festival, and Jennifer Gross, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Yale University Art Gallery
Below is the list of artists participating:
Meet James Ensor
James Ensor, Masks Mocking Death, 1888
At the end of the month (June 28th to be exact), MoMA is staging a full scale retrospective of the work of famous Belgian painter James Ensor (1860-1949). His work was often claustrophobic and acerbic, especially toward what is generally considered the epoch of his career, when his paintings began to resemble the nightmarish carnivalesque visions of Hieronymus Bosch, critiquing what he saw as the “indifference, stupidity, and venality of the modern world.”
Over 100 of Ensor’s paintings, drawings, and prints will be included in the exhibition, most of which date from the artist’s creative peak, 1880 to the mid-1890s. The exhibition is organized chronologically, and within that chronology are thematic groupings such as Ensor’s self-portraiture, or his satirical works. A number of works have never before been seen in the United States, if you were not convinced yet. Oh yeah, and it’s likely you’ll see one of the members of They Might Be Giants there!
Exhibition: The Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered
Currently at the Museum of the City of New York is Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered, guest curated by Kathy Ryan, Photo Editor of The New York Times Magazine. The exhibition mark’s the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in Manhattan and feature the work of contemporary Dutch photographers.
The artists featured in the exhibition range from the legendary Rineke Dijkstra to emerging artists who are just now gaining recognition, including Hendrik Kerstens, whose work we singled out for recognition at the Pulse Art Fair in March.
The Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered
Wednesday, June 10—Tuesday, September 15, 2009
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York
(212) 534-1672
Become a Fan
Follow Us on Twitter