Raise a glass I to ARCHITECTURE

Has the B/W Paean to architecture in Woody Allen's Manhattan been bankrupted from its denizens' collective memory banks over the years? Are people still wont to get curious about what's in their peripheral vision? New York artist Paul Ramírez Jonas (collaborating with nonprofit group Creative Time and the Mayor's office) believes that they have indeed remained human and is handing out mystery keys in Times Square - Key to the City- that will unlock 20 hidden nooks and crannies throughout the city's five boroughs. Line up, place your passport details into the white ledgers and away you go.
Some of the 30 or more volunteers for Key to the City^^^>>>

But if one wants their curious nature kept a secret perhaps purchasing the now iconic AIA Guide to New York City is the rune for summer rambling. First published in 1968 by architects Norval White and Elliot Willensky (revised editions in 1978 and 1988), until last week the most recent edition was published in 2000. There are now 2000 new photos and 300 new maps snapped and abetted by students from the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College.

An exhibition at The Center for Architecture shows ten projects, one from each of the last ten years. HERE can be found footage of the exhibition opening with personal tributes to the authors.

Perhaps one could also 'prime' oneself for architectural adventures by popping in around the corner from MoMA PS1 where the gallery Dean Project presents its annual invited curator exhibition: this year Jack in the Space by Heng-Gil Han of the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (organized by the AHL foundation, and hosted by the Dean Project.) His show asks us to reconsider our physical and mental relationship to the art work before us. Are the traditional boundaries of space and time nothing more than a so-called received wisdom? Video artist Kyung Woo Han creates a 'walk-in Mondrian' while Lishan Chang's project LC Bakery ushers in the gallery visitor with burnt baguettes.

Interview with the show's curator below on the JUNE 2 post.

PS 122's lower East Side gallery space (that's to close this summer for a few years while a glass structure arises in the building's courtyard) has a complementary show that includes the work of photographer Wayne Liu.

Inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Liu's

the meandering scar-news from nowhere is an invisible Chinese city made to "oscillate in between the here and the elsewhere of my imaginary".

Medrie MacPhee's (her 7th solo NYC show) new oil paintings at Von Lintel Gallery seem deceptively melo-dramatic in their architectural collisions. Yet within floats an entire inner world of calm, humor and solace inching beneath the collar of the canvas. But perhaps the road to nirvana is often not the one well travelled as Darren Almond shows in his video installation at Matthew Marks that follows a Tendal monk as he engages with the Buddhist practice of Kaihogyo. It asks for at least 15 minutes of one's busy New York time. And rewards it.

And will waterside NYC in 70 years look like the models of MoMA's Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront? It's not so much that this architecture exhibition differs radically from others in the field more that the ideas are so visceral and visionary-as if thrown up by the earth itself rather than ourselves. Within the next generation an oil refinery in Bayonne, N.J. is likely to be submerged by the rising tides. Young architects have created an artificial reef of crystalline-like 'jacks' that would be lowered from boats, and the greater theory behind the project is fascinating.

If re-invigorating figurative sculpture is your thing then Lower Manhattan's City Hall Park has six younger artists showing in Statuesque, the first project curated by the Public Art Fund's new Director and Chief Curator Nicholas BaumeIf. And the Great Small Works 9th International Toy Theater Festival drew to a close this weekend in Dumbo. This year for the first time there was an opening parade and an impromptu performance. And as this New York Times article conveys, though light in heart, many of the festival performances were also heavy in soul exploring social and political issues. Footage of the opening parade and guests below on the JUNE 2 post and photos HERE.

meanwhile, JOHN WATERS raises more than eyebrows

Now in its 4th year, FIGMENT opened this weekend on Governors Island with a cornucopia of art events. If like me you needed Sunday to explore yourself, fear not: the island will be populated by exciting goings-on throughout the summer.

Well worth seeking out are Patricia Esquivias' (a Venezualan Madrid-ite) almost childlike videos at Murray Guy that poke at Spanish architectural incongruities within a toy theater framework. Her vignettes, as she admitted in an artist talk, are not so much a criticism of Spain (as some have proffered) rather a celebration of cultural difference and critique of post American colonialism. She doesn't quite put the 'Grimm" back into fairy tales but you wonder around which corner it will lurk. And if so, will it be too stealthy for us to even notice.

American artist Alison Elizabeth Taylor returns to James Cohan Gallery for her third solo gallery exhibition Foreclosed. Returning to her hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada the artist clambered into properties left derelict by the economic crisis and her resulting art work would normally be seen only in Park Avenue mansions. Utilising the Renaissance craft of marquetry (intricately inlaid wood), Taylor creates a dialectic of dislocated architectural space, means of production, and the sublimity of power. Most 'boards' are wall hung like paintings but one piece clings to a corner cornice like some exquisite mold discovering life.

Photos HERE of the recent Stux Gallery opening of Barakat: The Gift. And in the small front room project space of Marianne Boesky's Chelsea gallery, cult film director John Waters has co-curated Outsider Porn: The Photographs of David Hurles concurrent with the publication of his book Role Models. Photos, and interview with co-curator Dian Hanson HERE (PLEASE NOTE there are images of a sexually explicit nature in the background). She has the enviable and possibly best job title in the world: Sexy Book Editor at Taschen.

John Waters greets friends at the opening

THAT PLAY'S SOME THING...

Last 2 days of the World Science Festival with free and ticketed events and your chance to meet a real astronaut (and astronaut-esses). The nomenclature may be politically liberating but one still thinks (ridiculously) that it's a man's module.

Or there's Hamlet meets vampires in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead, Jordan Galland's film based around Tom Stoppard's original play that premiered on the East Side last night. The wafting wiles of Devon Aoki are among its many eccentricities as well as Sean Lennon's score. They all ended up at Gramercy's Rose Bar and Cosmic Viva chatted up a man who looked and sounded very like the very cool Jarvis Cocker - but who claimed his name was Johnny Dark. As little Viva was starting to turn into a pumpkin anyway, she thought better to take her leave rather than have her Halloween transmogrification overshadow events and Sean Lennon's early breakfast gig.
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tiny gates to the imagination

Great Small Works 9th International Toy Theater Festival
opening day parade and impromptu show (May 30, 2010)





Jack in the Space curator Heng-Gil Han

National Day of the Italian Republic and Mimmo Rotella

Guests will gather this evening at the Cipriani Wall Street ballroom to celebrate June 2 - National Day of the Italian Republic marking the establishment of the Italian Republic on June 2, 1946. Bike to the Future is the slogan for this year’s celebrations and New York Consul General Francesco Maria Talò - referring to the important role the bicycle has played in the development of sustainable transportation - is confident that Italian bicycles will conquer the American market. “US cities and streets will soon be jammed with Vespas, 500s, and Italian bikes. They are environmentally friendly and therefore is supported by Italian institutions.” Last night, the Consul General officially opened the Italian Cultural Institute's exhibition Rotella and Cinema. Still a relatively little known artist outside Italy, last year's Mimmo Rotella show at New York's Knoedler Gallery proved his provocative talent. He was also the inventor of epistaltic poetry in 1949 - a combination of words (sometimes invented), sounds, and onomatopoeic reiteration.
Obituary
Guggenheim collection and Aras Gallery


Italian Cultural Institute director Riccardo Viale

More video from the opening HERE.

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