Yearly Archives: 2011

NO MORE LOVE

Art, music, and more come together at all-night Brooklyn warehouse party

63 Woodward Ave. between Metropolitan and Flushing Aves., Brooklyn
Saturday, March 5, 6:30 – 3:30
Admission: $5 with RSVP to www.mememovement.com
www.facebook.com/event

As Saturday nights go, this is a big one in the art world, with more than a dozen fairs in town, many with special programs scheduled for tonight. But a very different kind of event is taking place in a large warehouse in Brooklyn, where the nonprofit arts collective the Meme Movement has curated an exciting evening of art and music. While beer from the Brooklyn Brewery flows all night long ($2 6:30 – 8:00, $4 8:00 – 3:30), Loren Alliston, Lindsay Wynn, D. Oscar Horner, and Taylor Marie Prendergast will display their photography and installation art. The band lineup, beginning at 8:30, includes the Nelsonvillains, Evan Shinners & the SUITS! (who are planning a special fog-filled multimedia set, with the opening song played in complete darkness), Shapes, Ghost Pal, Flowers for Reagan, and Sitting Ducks, with DJs Earl, Big Time DK’s, and BullwInkle filling in the gaps. In addition, there will be tattoos by Aris, a photobooth, body painting, video projections, and more. Admission is five bucks with RSVP to www.mememovement.com. It should all make for a pretty wild night.

SITE Fest and IonSound Music Festival

You never know what you’ll walk into at Bushwick’s Site Fest (photo: Sidewalk Dances)

Multiple venues in Bushwick
March 5-6, suggested donation $5 per event, $10 day pass, $15 weekend pass
www.artsinbushwick.org

Celebrating the burgeoning art, music, dance, and film scene in Bushwick, the third annual Site Fest will feature a bevy of performances Saturday and Sunday in conjunction with Armory Arts Week. Held at Chez Bushwick, Grace Exhibition Space, the Bushwick Starr, 3rd Ward, and numerous satellite venues, the festival will feature such participatory events at 3rd Ward as Gavin Campbell’s “Documentation of Flag,” which deals with his growing up on the Irish border; Hoyun Son’s “Social Shredding,” centered on a garment made of Korean funereal fiber; Stefan Adamski’s “Induction,” involving audience hypnosis; and Michael Freeman’s “Part 3: The Mnemonic Fool Series,” in which he interacts with the public while naked. The Bushwick Starr will host a series of text-based performances and installations (Jeremy Finch’s “Sketchbook,” Ari and Friends’ “Shake,” “vvitalny shares her thoughts w/ birds”), while Chez Bushwick will concentrate on experimental dance, including Laurel and Aya’s “Hand in Glove,” CJ Holm/Creature Theater’s “The Salad of the Bad Café,” and Michele Torino Hower’s “Merengue, as in Pie.” At Grace, Dr. Lisa will offer “Psychotherapy Live!,” Polaroica will be tattooing in “Tiempofaga,” and Meatspace will stage an interactive multimedia “Frankenstein Sweater Party,” where sewers can join in. Goodbye Blue Monday will be home to the IonSound Music Festival, with performances by Aimee Norwich, Bombs Making Bombs, Dear Comrade, Pezzettino, the Controversy, Rarefaction, Emilyis, and other music groups. The suggested donation for all hub space events and performances is a mere five bucks, with proceeds benefiting the nonprofit organization Arts in Bushwick. Our choice for best title: Kate Berlant’s “An Illustrative Colonoscopy into an Epistemological Kitty Cat.”

FIRST SATURDAYS — TIPI: HERITAGE OF THE GREAT PLAINS

Lyle Heavy Runner (Blackfeet), design owner and painter; Naomi Crawford (Blackfeet), tipi maker, “Blackfeet Tipi,” canvas, latex paint, wood, Great Falls, Montana, 2010 (photo: Jenny Steven)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, March 5, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The new Brooklyn Museum exhibit “Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains” is the focus of the institution’s March First Saturdays program, a free night of art, music, talk, film, literature, and dance. The party begins at 5:00 with singer/songwriter/activist Martha Redbone’s unique blend of soul, R&B, and traditional Native American music. At 5:30, the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers will perform. James McDaniel’s 2003 film, Edge of America, set at a high school reservation, will screen at 6:00, the same time Brooklyn artist Yatika Fields will discuss the “Tipi” exhibit. The Hands-On Art workshop (6:30-8:30) will teach children and adults how to make the Native American pouch called a parfleche. At 7:00, Nancy Rosoff will lead a tour of “Tipi,” followed at 8:00 by a Young Voices talk in which student guides will venture through the exhibit. DJ Frame of the Redhawk Arts Council will be behind the turntables for the always smokin’ Dance Party (8:00 – 10:00). At 9:00, visitors have the choice of continuing to dance up a storm, checking out Joseph Marshall III talking about his latest book, To You We Shall Return, or participating in an interactive dance performance with the Redhawk Arts Council. In addition, the galleries remain open until 11:00, giving everyone ample time to check out such exhibits as “reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio,” “Thinking Big: Recent Design Acquisitions,” “Lorna Simpson: Gathered,” “Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera,” “Sam Taylor-Wood: Ghosts,” and “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets.”

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU

Emily Blunt and Matt Damon have a plan of their own in THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (George Nolfi, 2011)
Opens Friday, March 4
www.theadjustmentbureau.com

Loosely based on a 1954 short story by Phikilp K. Dick that was also the inspiration for the 1998 Alex Proyas film Dark City, which starred Jennifer Connelly and Rufus Sewell, The Adjustment Bureau is a gripping romantic thriller that begins and ends with overwrought silliness but packs quite a wallop in between. After losing his bid for the Senate because, among other reasons, the New York Post slapped a picture of his butt on its front page, U.S. congressman David Norris (Matt Damon) unexpectedly meets a beautiful dancer, Elise (Emily Blunt), in the men’s room of the Waldorf=Astoria as he rehearses his concession speech. Sparks fly, but as they try to begin a relationship, outside forces work hard to keep them apart. Those forces turn out to be members of a mysterious group of men in hats whose job it is to make sure the Chairman’s preordained plan continues as scheduled. After seeing something he wasn’t supposed to, Norris is told by Adjustment team leader Richardson (John Slattery) that he must never see Elise again and that if he tells anyone what he’s seen, they will erase his mind. But Norris isn’t about to give up the woman he feels destined to be with, no matter what the consequences. The Adjustment Bureau starts with a ridiculous montage of real-life pundits, broadcasters, and politicians talking about the fictional Norris. But once the drama kicks into full gear, the film turns into an exciting battle of wits that includes several cool chase scenes that take viewers through the real New York City, not Toronto or Vancouver or green screens; New Yorkers are sure to laugh out loud when Richardson tells his underling, Harry (Anthony Mackie), upon getting lost tracking David and Elise, “I hate downtown.” First-time director George Nolfi even gets the dance scenes right, making Elise a member of Chelsea’s Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, using the company’s real stage and actual dancers. The denouement gets unnecessarily sappy and melodramatic, but by then you’ll have had more than enough fun to adjust your enjoyment of this popcorner.

ZOOBOMBS

The Zoobombs will play it fast and wild at Bruar Falls and Studio at Webster Hall this weekend

Friday, March 4, Bruar Falls, 245 Grand St. between Driggs & Roebling, $8, 9:30
Saturday, March 5, Webster Hall, 125 East 11th St., $12, 8:00
www.myspace.com/zoobombs

Tokyo-based quartet Zoobombs were formed during a full moon in September 1994, and they’ve been playing it fast and wild ever since. Lead singer and guitarist Don Matsuo, bassist Moostop, keyboardist Matta, and drummer Pocky are set to release the compilation La Vie en Jupon on March 29, containing songs from such previous albums as 1999’s Let It Bomb and Bomb Freak Express, 2001’s Dirty Bomb, 2002’s Love Is Funky, and 2006’s Way In / Way Out. Proclaimed leaders of Japan’s Next Wave and a huge success in Canada, Zoobombs mix grungy blues and indie guitar jangling with hardcore punk flourishes and psychedelic garage rock. La Vie en Jupon is like a crash course in American music, evoking Dylan on “Way In / Way Out,” ZZ Top on “Builbone Blues,” the Mississippi Delta on the swampy “Don’s Dream” (a reworking of “Little Red Rooster”), downtown hipster cool on “Circle X,” and good ol’ funk on “Mo’ Funky” and “Jumbo.” Anarchy and chaos rule the day on the fab freak-out “Highway a Go Go” as well as on “Dolf” and “Get It Together.” And turn it up, because this shit has to be played LOUD. As good as the new, digital-only disc is, it’s as a live band that the Zoobombs have earned their reputation, and they’ll be getting it together at Bruar Falls in Brooklyn on Friday night with Victory & Good Hunting, Columboid, and Nymph and at the Studio at Webster Hall on Saturday with Deluka, the Front Bottoms, the Almighty Terribles, and J. Aims & the Milk Bottles. Expect things to get hairy even though the moon won’t be full.

THE ARMORY SHOW 2011

Some sixty thousand art lovers attended last year’s Armory Show, the centerpiece of Armory Arts Week

Twelfth Ave at 55th St.
Pier 92: Modern
Pier 94: Contemporary
March 3-6, $30 per day, Run of Show Pass $60, Armory/VOLTA Pass $40
212-645-6440
www.thearmoryshow.com

Named after the legendary 1913 Armory Show, the thirteenth Armory Show: The International Fair of New Art begins today on the Far West Side, with eighty galleries at Pier 92 displaying modern and historically significant contemporary art, two hundred booths at Pier 94 featuring new work by living artists, and another eighteen from seven countries taking part in “Armory Focus: Latin America.” Among the special programming is “Open Forum,” held at both the Armory Show and VOLTA and consisting of such free discussions as “In Conversation: Richard Flood and Gabriel Kuri” (the Mexican-born, Belgium-based Kuri was commissioned to give the 2011 fair its unique visual identity) and “Ask Los Artistes” today, “Art Funds: Is Now the Time?” and “Spectacle Against Spectacle” on Friday, “In Conversation: Ivan Navarro and Victor Zamudio-Taylor” and “Post-Conceptual: The Reach of Theory in Contemporary Art” on Saturday, and “Biennials as Barometers of Social Transformation? Dublin Contemporary 2011: Art, Crisis, Change & the Office of Non-Compliance” and “In Conversation: Ed Halter and George Kuchar” on Sunday. We strongly recommend leaving work early to attend “In Conversation: Luis Camnitzer, Deborah Cullen, and Gabriel Perez-Barreiro” on Friday at 4:00, as Camnitzer’s current retrospective at El Museo del Barrio is one of the best shows in the city right now. The centerpiece of Armory Arts Week, the Armory Show runs in conjunction with VOLTA and Artprojx Cinema; a free shuttle bus will take fairgoers between Piers 92 and 94 and Volta (34th St. & Fifth Ave.) and the New Museum (235 Bowery).

NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL 2011

Japanese director Koji Masumari’s animated WELCOME TO THE SPACESHOW is one of the many movies that will transport kids to other worlds at New York International Children’s Film Festival

Multiple venues in Manhattan
March 4-27, $12-$15
All Access Pass: $250
www.gkids.com

Founded in 1991, the New York International Children’s Film Festival presents cinematic programming for children all year long, anchored by what is now a nearly monthlong festival of films for children ages three to eighteen. Held at Symphony Space, the Cantor Film Center, Asia Society, the Directors Guild of America Theater, the IFC Center, and the Scholastic Theater, the 2011 festival begins on March 4 with the world premiere of Simon Wells’s animated 3D picture Mars Needs Women, based on the book by Berkeley Breathed. The nine feature works in competition range from Gagnol/Felicioli’s A Cat in Paris (France) to Taika Waitit’s Boy (New Zealand), from Alex Law’s Echoes of the Rainbow (Hong Kong) to Ben Stassen’s Sammy’s Adventures: The Secret Passage (Belgium), from Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Time of Eve (Japan) to Chen Deming’s The Dreams of Jinsha (China), a potent mix of poignant family drama, futuristic animation, and playful adventure from all around the globe. Among the six programs of short films are Shorts for Tots, Flicker Lounge: For Teens & Adults Only…, Heebie Jeebies: Spooky, Freaky & Bizarre…, and Girls’ POV, with all participating works eligible for Oscar consideration. The juried fest has an esteemed panel of judges, including Adam Gopnik, Matthew Modine, Michel Ocelot, Susan Sarandon, James Schamus, Uma Thurman, John Turturro, Christine Vachon, and Gus Van Sant. The festival will host two interactive workshops, “Music & Sound for Film” and “Green Screen,” while the panel discussion “Breaking into the Boys Club: Girls Behind the Camera” will examine women in film, as will special screenings of Christian Laurence’s Aurelie Laflamme’s Diary (Canada) and Arne Birkenstock’s Chandani: The Daughter of the Elephant Whisperer (Sri Lanka). Many of the screenings will be followed by Q&As, and all films are recommended for specific ages so parents can choose the ones most appropriate for their little ones. The festival runs March 4-27, but be sure to check out the official website for other events taking place throughout the year. Programs will sell out, so act quickly.