Brooklyn Fundraiser For Braddock Project

This was the week, I finally got around to taking a tour of the "Points of Interest" tour of collaborative murals and other projects done by local and international artists and the kids in the Braddock and North Braddock area. I will try to post on that later since me and my freind saw almost all the remaining works by great artists like Swoon, Lady Pink, Maya Hayuk and Mary Tremont.

The whole thing, brought me around to thinking about Braddock again. As you might know, Swoon and a group of other artists have been involved in forming something called Braddock Active arts which I think will be centered around a church in North Braddock. I still am not sure where this place is yet, which reflects both the free form, open collaborative nature of the project, it's early stage of life, and just how out of the loop I am. Coursing through this little known and neglected area are little groups of artists, working on the Braddock Farm, rehabbing a small number of homes and involving themselves in a range of floating creative projects.

So anyway, one of them seems to be called -- The Transformazium, and they are held a series of events to support the project last week in Brooklyn, one of which was an auction of art by a long list of internationally known artists like Swoon, Barry McGee, Paper Rad, Lady Pink and Kiki Smith as well as a long list of locally known folks like Mary Tremont, Josh Tonies and Thad Kellstadt. Larger Poster -- Here

Get this DVD now!

Catune Xprez is a great collection of animations. I've listed my three favorites from the collection, but all of them were good.

SLOW DANCE RECYTTAL
by Peter Burr, Christopher Doulgeris, Cassandra C. Jones
2006


THE LITTLE FOX
by Luke Meeken and Andrew Negrey
2003


THE MONKEY WRITES
by Drew Pavelchak
2004

The DVD is available from their website. You can also pick it up locally at Copacetic Comics. A preview of The Little Fox is available here.

The NY Art Book Fair

One of the best things I ran into in NY was the first NY Art Book Fair which was held in DIA's old Chelsea space and was totally free. I ended up there on Saturday while trying to jam in all kinds of other stuff, including a trip to the open studios at Hunter. Several other bloggers, like AFC and Barry and James have done wonderfull detailed posts on the fair. Most, like me really apreciated the mix of high end booksellers, non profits and all kinds of facinating DYI print projects and alternative press.

Here is a long quote from AFC.

"In a city where you have to pay to sit down, it is refreshing to attend an art fair that offers a few free goodies you might actually want. Pet Book, by artist James Sprez, (and published by Back East Press) is one of many such items that can be found at The New York Art Book Fair, this one packaged in a baggies that encourages attendees to smoke it. It may be that the plastic sleeves on books ranging from free to hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, make a book seem so precious and alluring that I am rendered blindingly smitten, but I feel safe in saying that it is more than just packaging that has led me to the conclusion that of all the fairs I have attended this year, including The ADAA, The Armory, Scope, Pulse, and The Affordable Art Fair, The New York Art Book Fair is the best. The NY Art Book Fair succeeds because it satisfies the art snob and the art collector while providing a venue for less commercially driven endeavors. "

Another nice thing was that several galleries seemed to have arainged book related shows that connected well with the Fair. The two that I ran into that really worked were, the Dieter Roth show at Josee Bienvenu and Brian Chippendale's installation at D'Amellio Terras, just down the block from the fair.

David Grim in Brooklyn and Chelsea

So David is now on his way back and leaving a trail of hostility behind him. Here are some of his musings on his trip. He did make it in to see the new space of D'Amelio Terras ,only to mispell the gallery name in his review ( like they don't have enough reason to be mad at me ) and then rolled around to see the Lifestyles of the Rich and Obnoxious galleries on my little list. I believe that DT , just rushed under the wire to beat a bunch of galleries in the renovation boom there. He loved the show at Mixed Greens and I told him to ask to see a friend's work they had there. He just missed the Foxy show of Jessica Ciocci of Paper Rad fame. Ed is also apparently blogging in peace these days. Well the party rolls on I guess and as to the people frosting the glass trying to get into this glass world, well who knows what will happen to them.

He also has ome other impressions so I'll give him the floor. Musings on Chelsea. Musings on Brooklyn.

In the interest of driving search traffic, Here are the galleries he mentions; Clementine, Plus Ultra, Derek Eller, Gagosian, D'Amelio Terras, Mixed Greens and others I am sure.