Yearly Archives: 2011

CINEKINK 2011

Ilana Rothman’s AN OPEN INVITATION: A REAL SWINGERS PARTY IN SAN FRANCISCO is part of annual CineKink festival

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second St. at Second Ave.
March 1-6, individual programs $9-$12, parties $10-$30, All-Access Pass $60-$80
www.cinekink.com

Last month, the Quad presented “A Week of Sex in Cinema,” featuring such controversial films as Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs, and Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Betty Blue, which all pushed the boundaries of on-screen sex. Well, the annual Cinekink festival cuts right to the chase, focusing on the sex and not the controversy. Running March 1-6, Cinekink will be hosting such programs as “Kink Crusaders,” “Sexual Radar,” “Crave,” “Adventures in the Skin Trade,” “Porn Again,” and “Lust, Love, Life,” showing such films as Love Hotel, Hooka Face and the Virgin Boy, Teat Beat of Sex, Artcore, Trannywood Gone Wild, The Erotic Couch, Billy Castro Does the Mission, GayKeith, Return of the Post Apocalyptic Cowgirls, 52 Takes of the Same Thing. Then Boobs, Chained! and Passion, Fruit. The kick-off party takes place tonight at Taj Lounge, followed by screenings at Anthology Film Archives.

SCOPE NEW YORK 2011

Cinders Gallery’s “The Outer-Boroughs Cyclical Non-Cynical Art School of Thought” will be part of “us vs us” program at Scope

320 West St. at the West Side Highway across from Pier 40
First View: Wednesday, March 2, $100, 3:00 – 9:00 pm
General Admission: March 3-6, $20
www.scope-art.com

This year Scope is expanding into a sixty-thousand-square-foot space along the West Side Highway, where more than fifty international exhibitors will have work on view, including a.m.f. projects, Mindy Solomon, Galeria Christopher Paschall, Galerie Von Braunbehrens, Gallery Dukan & Hourdequin, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Paci Arte, and Aureus Contemporary. Scope will host numerous special events during the fair, centered around “us vs us,” which takes place in the fenced-in mezzanine and consists of such site-specific performance art pieces as “Come On Guy,” Craig Smith’s “Stacking Boats: A Lesson Plan,” Stephanie Diamond’s “Home Away from Home” corner store, Cinders Gallery’s “The Outer-Boroughs Cyclical Non-Cynical Art School of Thought,” and Grace Space’s “The Way to Love Me,” in which members of the audience are encouraged to lie to one another. Other special projects include the Rebaroque Artist Series Sound Wall, a film program from Robert Boyd, and the West Harlem Art Fund’s “Gumboot Dance.”

POOL ART FAIR 2011

Matt Bahen, “Gatekeeper,” oil on canvas, 2010

Gershwin Hotel
7 East 27th St. at Fifth Ave.
March 4-6, suggested donation $10 (vernissage and party $50), 3:00 – 10:00 pm
www.poolartfair.com
www.gershwinhotel.com

Organized by Frère Independent, the PooL Art Fair features unrepresented artists not seen at other art fairs, offering collectors, gallerists, and art lovers the opportunity to get in on the ground floor with emerging talent. The fair opens on Thursday at 3:00, followed by vernissage at 6:00 and a party at 10:00 with a DJ and open bar ($50). The art is spread out in more than thirty rooms on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, in addition to the lobby, with a focus on painting. Among the stronger works are two large-scale, densely textured oils by Matt Bahen depicting mysterious locations with dogs, “Gatekeeper” and “We Carved Our Names”; Bob Clyatt’s “Reframing Figurative Sculpture,” particularly three male figures hanging upside down; Claudie Bastide’s “Freedom and Random,” consisting of French Abstraction Lyrique canvases bathed in reds and yellows and blacks; Dan Pottick’s photographs of naked threesomes playing together, in the same room with several lovely paintings by Lola Morishita; and dirquo nyc/++’s and Tracey Kessler’s graffiti-culture abstract works. As you walk into each hotel room, you’re also entering each artist’s unique vision of the world, with most of them there to share it with you, so be sure to say hello and ask questions.

TIBET HOUSE BENEFIT CONCERT XXI

The Flaming Lips will be part of another outstanding lineup of special guests at the annual Tibet House benefit at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
881 Seventh Ave. at 57th St.
Thursday, March 3, $33-$95, 7:30
212-247-7800
www.tibethouse.org
www.carnegiehall.org

Founded at the request of the Dalai Lama, Tibet House US is “dedicated to preserving Tibet’s unique culture at a time when it is confronted with extinction on its own soil. By presenting Tibetan civilization and its profound wisdom, beauty, and special art of freedom to the people of the world, we hope to inspire others to join the effort to protect and save it.” Tibet House hosts many events year-round, and one of their biggest scheduled for Thursday night, when the twenty-first annual benefit concert will take place in Carnegie Hall. The show is always an eclectic gathering of kindred spirits giving unique performances in honor of Tibet and the Tibetan people, and this year’s lineup is another outstanding one, consisting of Philip Glass, Tenzin Choegyal, the Flaming Lips, Jesse Smith and Michael Campbell, Angelique Kidjo, Taj Mahal, James McCartney, the Roots, Patti Smith, and Michael Stipe. Good seats in the orchestra are still available, as are the cheap seats way in the back of the balcony. The Tibet House benefit concert is always an inspiring experience; if you’ve never been, now’s as good a time as any to “join the effort to protect and save” an unfairly oppressed nation and its people.

VOLTA NY 2011

Mark Jenkins’s “Family Room” is one of the early favorites at Volta

7 West 34th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
March 3-6, $10-$15 (combination pass with the Armory Show $40)
www.ny.voltashow.com

VOLTA NY, founded by Amanda Coulson as an invitational show of solo projects, focuses on the artists themselves instead of galleries or artistic themes. Held at 7W across the street from the Empire State Building, VOLTA, which works in partnership with the Armory Show (a free shuttle will run between each, and a $40 discounted ticket gets you into both), will feature installations by more than ninety international artists and collectives, including Judi Werthein, EVOL, [dNASAb], Ryan Schneider, Florian Heinke, Mark Jenkins, Homebase, George Kuchar, BGL, Daniel Rozin, and Artprojx, from twenty-three countries as Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Costa Rica, Mexico, Trinidad, Spain, Argentina, and the U.S. David Tully and Shiri Mordechay have been chosen for the entrance and lobby, while Michael Decker’s “Old Growth” ironing boards lead to the elevators. Culture Shock Marketing and Vimeo have curated cutting-edge projections for the elevator and shuttle bus from such artists as Paddy Jolley, Glenn Marshall, Hugh McGrory, Scott Pagano, and J. G. Zimmerman, and Jennifer and Kevin McKoy have put together actor-led guided tours that begin in the eleventh-floor foyer. Volta will also host Open Forum talks with such artists as Yevgeniy Fiks, Mauricio Miranda, and Deborah Grant and such curators and gallerists as Courtney Martin, Erin Sickler, Kate Kraczon, and Ed Halter.

GREAT MUSIC REIMAGINED

The Turtle Island Quartet will give a different spin to the music of Jimi Hendrix at Symphony Space (photo © Jay Blakesberg)

Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Wednesday, March 2, Turtle Island Quartet: The Hendrix Project, $15-$34, 7:30 & 9:30
Friday, March 11, Theo Bleckmann: The Music of Kate Bush, $15-$34, 7:30 & 9:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.turtleislandquartet.com
www.theobleckmann.com

Nominated for a 2011 Grammy, Turtle Island Quartet’s Have You Ever Been . . . ? (Telarc, August 2010) features the group’s jazz-classical versions of such Jimi Hendrix songs as “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” “Hey Joe,” “Little Wing,” and “All Along the Watchtower” as well as tunes inspired by the 1960s guitar god, such as their own new composition, “Tree of Life.” Violinists David Balakrishnan and Mads Tolling, cellist Mark Summer, and violist Jeremy Kittel will be at Symphony Space on March 2 as part of the “Great Music Reimagined” series, highlighting tracks from the album. The series continues March 11 with “Hello Earth! The Music of Kate Bush,” as vocalist Theo Bleckmann takes on the eclectic songbook of the British muse, including “Running Up That Hill” and “All the Love.” He’ll be accompanied by percussionist John Hollenbeck, bassist Skuli Sverrisson, keyboardist Henry Hey, and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Burhans.

LUCKYRICE 2011 FESTIVAL

Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto will host a special omakase dinner and sake and shochu tasting as part of the second annual LUCKYRICE Festival

Multiple locations
May 2-8, $59-$571
www.luckyricefestival.com

Despite the high prices, tickets are already going fast for the second annual LUCKYRICE festival, a week of special Asian culinary events held in venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The food fest begins May 2 with a kick-off dinner at annisa hosted by Anita Lo ($240) and continues May 3 with a cocktail party at the Bowery Hotel with Carol Lim and Humberto Leon ($59-$102), May 4 with the wildly popular Asian Night Market at the Archway Under the Manhattan Bridge in Dumbo ($59-$102), May 5 with an Omakase Dinner and Sake + Shochu Soirée at Morimoto with Masaharu Morimoto ($288) and a Flavors of Macau four-course wine-pairing dinner at the James Beard House ($170), May 6 with a Grand Feast at the Mandarin Oriental ($174-$288), May 7 with La Fête Chinoise at Daniel with Daniel Boulud and Susur Lee ($571), and then concludes May 8 with a Talk + Taste hosted by the Cooking Channel’s Ching-He Huang at the Astor Center ($59). The festival’s culinary council includes most of the aforementioned participants in addition to Anthony Bourdain, Floyd Cardoz, David Chang, Pichet Ong, Tadashi Ono, Eric Ripert, Marcus Samuelsson, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and others, helping explain why it has become so successful so quickly. The $458 LUCKYRICE Passport includes VIP admission to the opening cocktail party, the Night Market, the Grand Feast, the Talk + Taste, and other perks. Proceeds benefit City Harvest.