Ian Ference will talk about his images of urban decay and negative space at tonight’s 403 cultural salon (photo © Ian Ference)
Private building in downtown Manhattan (given upon RSVP)
Monday, June 27, $60 with RSVP , 7:00 – 11:00 pm
www.facebook.com/event
www.ianferencephoto.com
Lelaine Lau, who was recently honored as the May Woman of the Month by Thierry Mugler’s Womanity Project, will be hosting her latest 403 cultural salon with special guest Ian Ference. The Rochester-born, Brooklyn-based photographer focuses much of his work on architectural interiors, including a continuing project on abandoned buildings, particularly insane asylums. As Lau explains, “Ian Ference’s photography of urban decay is both transporting and beautiful. The histories that he writes are meticulously researched. They are a peek at a bygone era, a slice of history. From his haunting images of Admiral’s Row, North Brother Island, or Hart Island, to the images of abandoned hotels and theatres along the Eastern seaboard, the stories behind the buildings touch on issues of architectural heritage, societal mores and attitudes of the time, demolition-by-neglect, development, zoning, and landmarking. Other photos conjure up thoughts on a more human scale.” In his artist statement, Ference explains, “The primary purpose of my work is to create a living record of these structures, many of them architecturally rich, and most of them in danger of demolition, whether by neglect or by wrecking ball. Every building has stories — the stories of the people who worked, lived, and died within its walls. Vacant now, the walls can still tell some of these stories, and it is in that direction that I aim my camera.” Ference will discuss and present images of the vast breadth of his work at tonight’s gathering, with a light dinner and wine catered by Vance Brooking and Mey Bun.
The North American premiere of the wild and wacky, genre-iffic Milocrorze: A Love Story kicks off the tenth anniversary of New York City’s most exciting annual film series, the New York Asian Film Festival, running July 1-14 at Lincoln Center. Melding Michel Gondry with Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike filtered through Max Ophüls’s La Ronde and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, longtime commercial, video, and television director Yoshimasa Ishibashi makes his feature-film cinematic debut with this highly stylized three-part tale of love and romance. In the first section, seven-year-old salaryman Ovreneli Vreneligare, wearing one of the most charming costumes and hairstyles ever put on celluloid, falls in love with the beautiful, and adult, Milocrorze (Maiko) in a candy-coated fantasyland of lush colors and dreamlike sets. That bittersweet tale leads into the second part, in which bizarre youth counselor Besson Kumagi (Takayuki Yamada) abusively screams relationship advice to lonely boys over the phone, then breaks out into self-celebratory dance numbers with a couple of hot babes, a sort of Japanese version of Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton character. That story segues into the violent, vengeful mini-epic of rogue samurai Tamon (Yamada again), who starts out as a simple man who falls in love with Yuri the flower girl (Ann Ishibashi) but is soon trying to rescue her from a high-priced gambling and prostitution ring. Ishibashi then circles back to Milocrorze and Ovreneli Vreneligare (Yamada yet again, in his third role) years later for the tender finale. Milocrorze is a vastly entertaining, wonderfully absurd, and utterly ridiculous (and we mean that in a good way) exercise in multiple genres from the endlessly inventive Ishibashi. The samurai section goes on way too long, but otherwise this is a rousing success from start to finish, even when it is making absolutely no sense, which is very often. Milocrorze is the opening-night selection of NYAFF 2011, and both Ishibashi and Yamada will be at Lincoln Center on July 1 to participate in a postscreening Q&A; prior to the screening, Yamada will receive the Star Asia Rising Star Award. The film is being presented in conjunction with Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, screening at Japan Society on July 10, followed by a Q&A with Ishibashi. Keep watching twi-ny for more reviews of select films from our two favorite film festivals of the year.
