ESPERANTO - DESPERADO

I had a brief conversation with a near stranger about the Esperanto language during the Saturday Gallery visits at the Julien Bismuth exhibition at Galerie Emanuel Layr. This got me thinking about one of my favorite yearly adventures... Lange Nacht der Museen. Lange Nacht der Museen is a national treasure where for a set price (cheap) or with a PRESS card (free) one can explore into the wee hours of the morning all the museums in one of the great museum cities of the world...Vienna. (Yes, still, since the last time I wrote the same thing). I go every year that I am around and I get a little depressed if I miss it. And each year I find something strange and this year I 'discovered' the Esperanto Museum. 

And lastly because it sounds like ESPERANTO I offer up DESPERADO the 1973 classic Eagle's song that was played a disproportionate number of times at the now defunct Turkey's Nest Tavern. The Turkey's Nest was a classic Hasidic dive bar (yes, I can write that, laugh and listen to the song all at the same time!) located on the corner next to the baseball diamonds in WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn. And we danced, dancarto*.


Adiaŭ ...as they would say in Esperanto!


(*Dancarto - is apparently more the art of dancing which I am certain we were not doing at the Turkey's Neck Nest...but it sounds good.)

SATURDAY GALLERIES: VIENNA 4

Fernand Léger
Mechanical Elements
1926 

I walked out of the nice newly renovated and re-named Galerie Emanuel Layr (formerly Layr + Wuestenhagen) thinking about Fernand Leger and Francis Picabia. Not because the artist Julien Bismuth whose exhibition is currently up happens to be French or that the work has any visual affinity to these machine-mad men but because of the gleaming trophy of an espresso machine in the back office that churned out a 25 second ristretto in half the time and tasted great.

WORKS ON PAPER: 2010-2011

Julie Ryan, Works on paper, 2010-11, 40x30cm (or 30x40cm), gouache, ink, graphite, paper


MORE WORKS CLICK HERE.

JACK PIERSON

JACK PIERSON

Jack Pierson offers various interpretations on the social jester, the romantic, and the urban observer.

WALL VIOLIN VOLCANO

My opening performance at Galerie Grazy this past September featured a performance with Timothy Dunin  and Theremin player Pamelia Kursten and was rockin'! And....unrecorded. This is a short video recorded and not amplified the next day and gives some idea of playing a Wall Violin Volcano. More images of this exhibition with artists Benedetta Jacovoni and Tamuna Sirbiladze can be found HERE.

HOSPITAL VIEW

It looked like the most beautiful hospital view in the world. Unless it is actually what you are looking at, then it is all about the point of view. Leave beauty to the beholders. I was a visitor.

WHAT IF...

ELI and EDYTHE BROAD ART MUSEUM

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan

Current managing director of Departure for the City of Vienna (and former Austrian Cultural Forum Director), Christoph Thun-Hohenstein along with Vienna based artist and gallerist Lisa Ruyter have both been named to the curatorial advisory board of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan.

SATURDAY GALLERIES: VIENNA 3

Christoph Meier in -Polis-Pollis-Politics- @ Das Weisse Haus

And the beat goes on...

Currently Das Weisse Haus has two exhibitions The Borders of Drawing in the main rooms and –Polis-Pollis-Politics- in the project room. P.P.P. is a smart and tautly curated group exhibition that (in the version I saw) hung an Ute Müller vertical blind sculpture as its center piece conceptually while creating rotating slices of the show as one moves around the room.

The Borders of Drawing in its generic title suggests something not generic, but rather at the edge of drawing in an expanded field. The show is in fact a pragmatic and conservative survey of drawing that is largely architecturally based and uniformily black and white. But where the The Borders of Drawing largely fails in the testing of borders it succeeds in reaffirming that drawing is exactly what you think it is. Some may find comfort in the inviolable border of our own imaginations.

Jonathan Quinn in –Polis-Pollis-Politics- @ Das Weisse Haus

SYLVIE FLEURY

SYLVIE FLEURY

Cristaux, 2001

Sylvie Fleury creates high art objects from a self-described interest in art’s complete superficiality. It is a serious interest and one that resonates through all of her work. Beginning with glossy boutique shopping bag installations, complete with packages and purchases secluded out of sight and arranged with great formality, Fluery has dedicated herself to the capitalist hives and drawn inspiration in the activity. A pioneer in exploiting the tangential relationships between fashion branding, re-branding and fine art, Fleury sensed an inherent affinity between luxury merchandizing and l’objects des art. She also has a strong interest in aliens, cars and New Age.

ROLL WITH IT

I spent the last 4 hours writing a series of reviews and letting dough rise but all that turned out was the breakfast. Luckily the whole wheat homemade rolls proved the perfect Sunday salve after loosing ever single word I wrote to the hinterland of my laptop. Looks like it is starting to be one of those Why me? sort of days. 

FAT, TUESDAY, CHUCK

Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fasching, Carnival, Shrove Tuesday - it is that season again, the season of Lent and of Chuck. The season beginning with costumes and consumption, wakes up to black ash covered foreheads, abstinence, penitence and yields to hot cross buns, redemption and springtime (eternal or otherwise).

I remember this season as a child being full of ritual and anticipation. The crucifix would be covered up with purple cloth and we would 'give-up' something for Lent (ideally something that would not cause undo suffering for us kids). I would give-up being mean or lying or some activity that is difficult for adults to keep track of. There was a solemnity to and excitement in receiving the symbolic ashes of Christ on our foreheads. I think it is the only sacrament in the church that actually alters the way we look and hence are looked at. Yes, these are a reminder of our own fates. Yes, the consecrated remains of a man in absentia is wiped in the form of a clumsy cross on my face - but Hey! - doesn't it look cool standing in line at the grocery? A bindi, our own Catholic spark of danger, more Manson than Madonna (the virgin one).

This time of year good Catholics think of the resurrection of Christ but mostly Lent reminds me of Chuck.

CLEMENS STECHER: CHARADE(S)

Clemens Stecher

Charade(s)

A girl tugs at her ear, a man yells out “sounds like,” the girl points to the man and nods yes. Then she points to her head, tugs at her ponytail. “Hair!” Someone shouts, and again she nods in confirmation. “Sounds like hair!” And the game begins. Charades, as a plural, is a type of word guessing game in which one person acts out a word or phrase while other players guess what it is. The idea being to rely on physical rather than verbal language to convey meaning. Charades (the game) was invented by a teacher of the mute in order to allow his pupils to express themselves freely. Charade in its singular form is defined as a 'word represented in riddling verse or by picture, tableau, or dramatic action.'

IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER

TOP 10 NYC: ARMORY WEEK

Ok. So it is around 10 and may fluctuate as the days progress. NYC is all about flexibility and distinguishing smoke from the fire this week as many of you will be here for The Armory Show et al. With that in mind I have assembled a wee slice of the Big Apple into a hits list in no particular order (except the first one!):

PABLO