From EFA

Playing to the Senses:
An Evening of Food and Discussion with Elizabeth Thacker Jones

Friday, April 29, 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Organized in conjunction with the Prolonged Engagement exhibition, and inspired by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’ Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium*, Elizabeth Thacker Jones addresses the link between performance and food as it relates to the growing interest in local and regional food systems, and specific artistic practices that revolve around ideas of prolonged engagement and sustainability. To ground the conversation, Jones and curator Erin Sickler will provide a dinner made from locally sourced ingredients. The event is $13 per person and BYOBeverage; seating is limited.

*In Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium, folklore and performance scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett draws several parallels between food and performance. First, that they are both executed, using various tools, actions, and materials; second, that they both behave, as governed by laws, customs, and habits; and finally, that they are displayed, requiring participants to understand these products as aesthetic objects. In relation to artists’ interest in food as a medium, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett asks: Since cooking techniques, culinary codes, eating protocols, and gastronomic discourses are already so highly elaborated, what is there left for professional artists who chose to work with food as subject or medium to do? By inserting the undeniably sensual experience of eating into the rare, abstracted discourse of art, artists are able to reframe both the nature of food and the nature of art by highlighting their respective roles as historical, social, and phenomenological elements.

To RSVP please contact michelle@efanyc.org

Elizabeth Thacker Jones works to understand our relationships to food systems. Her focus is on programming for emerging educators and designers to address access to healthy and sustainable food. She is currently a Nutrition Educator in New York City Public Schools in collaboration with Studio in A School, NYC Greenmarket and Columbia Teachers College. She is known for her pies and vast knowledge of sustainable caviar. She received her BA in Visual Art and French from Oberlin College (2002) and is pursuing a Food Studies MA from New York University. Elizabeth lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

From Paul

ESIBIZIONI, APERTURE, MOSTRE :: da Centotto

Opening tomorrow, Friday, 29 April, 6-10pm:

Landscapes Metamorphic, Topologies Chromatoplastic

An interstizio exhibit featuring new works by
Cynthia Hartling, Francesco Longenecker, MaryKate Maher and Layton Hower.

We at Centotto would be very charmed
if all of you, amicissimi, would join us in traversing
a range of chromatic terrains
arrayed so as to
vanquish visual Wanderlust.

Or, with citational repurposing:

"The wealth of shadows, the torrents of light...
the rare reflection, the fluid transitions
from one element to another...
a particular kind of heliotypy...
and the world really never was so sinuous." *

The trees out front all abloom, and rather pinkly.

See you tomorrow, a domani,

Paul



________________________

* V. Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading, Vintage, New York, 1989, 50-51.



Centotto :: galleria [simposio] salotto
250 Moore Street, #108
Brooklyn, NY 11206
http://centotto.com
+1.908.338.3590

From Obama

Austin --

If it were easy to do the big, meaningful things we believe will make our country better -- if it were quick -- someone would have done those things long before any of us showed up.

We've chosen to do something hard.

You know that our victories so far have been hard won: taking the difficult steps necessary to put our economy back on track, reforming Wall Street excess despite an army of lobbyists against us, and making health care more affordable and accessible despite well-organized opposition by those who profit from the status quo.

You also know we have not yet done everything we set out to do -- not nearly.

But that's a reason to work harder, not to let up. That's why we're building this campaign now. And you have to take ownership of it.

So I will be direct: Can you step up and make a donation of $25 to get us started?

https://donate.barackobama.com/Begin-Again

We've had the chance to make historic changes that touch every American: from passing a law that says women should get an equal day's pay for an equal day's work to removing 100,000 troops from Iraq.

Those things and every other important change we've made happened because people like you built an organization to win an election in 2008.

The stakes are even higher this time.

As I've spoken with supporters who are helping get this campaign started, I've met folks who are frustrated by the pace of change.

I understand that. But we knew this wouldn't be easy. The kind of change we're working for never comes easily.

Now is the time to begin again, and build the campaign that will shape our country's future.

Thank you,

Barack

Matthew Miller: Opening Reception: Saturday, April 30, 7 – 10 PM

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 30, 7 – 10 PM

Matthew Miller:
the magic black of an open barn door
on a really sunny summer day,
when you just cannot see into it

May 1 — June 5, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 30, 7 – 10 PM
Curators: Famous Accountants

April 23, 2011 — Famous Accountants is pleased to present Matthew Miller: the magic black of an open barn door on a really sunny summer day, when you just cannot see into it, on view from April 30 to June 5, 2011. Five of Miller’s iconoclastic self-portraits will be on display.

“Unsurprisingly, given the evident meticulousness of his paintings, Miller works slowly and deliberately, and may return to a single painting again and again over the course of several months to perfect a single crucial line. Enthralling results reward the painstaking effort. Miller’s work exudes what I would call the drama of subtlety. In two small self-portraits, for example, visually minuscule divergences – the adjustment of an angle here, a brushstroke there – yield alter-egos in quite stark opposition: one vulnerable and probably gentle, the other impervious and latently threatening. As with his previous work, the depthlessly opaque background in these paintings serves to focus the viewer all the more tightly on the figures themselves and to anchor their qualities in space and time. In Matthew Miller’s art, whether he looks inward or outward, both heart and precision flourish.”
— Jonathan Stevenson

Matthew Miller was raised as a Mennonite in rural Pennsylvania.

Opened in October 2009, Famous Accountants is a Bushwick gallery that has been written about in the Art in America, New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, L Magazine, Village Voice, New York Press, Time Out New York, BushwickBK, Hrag Vartanian, Bloggy, and Brooklyn Based. Organized by Famous Accountants Matthew Miller: the magic black of an open barn door on a really sunny summer day, when you just cannot see into it is the twelfth exhibition at the space.

Famous Accountants
1673 Gates Avenue
Bushwick, Brooklyn
L or M train to Myrtle-Wyckoff stop
Directions
Open Sundays from 1 to 6 PM and by appointment.
For information, please email: FamousAccountants@gmail.com

"Urban Legend" at Vaudeville Park, on Saturday, May 7th from 6-9pm.

Interesting Spaces Dept.:

"Urban Legend" at Vaudeville Park, on Saturday, May 7th from 6-9pm. I hope you can make it!

Curated by Leonora Loeb with works by:

Katherine Daniels, Merav Ezer, Leonora Loeb, Gregg Louis, Laurel Lueders, Pamela Matsuda-Dunn, Jong Hyun Oh, Alfredo Plot, Jonathan Rider, Orit Ben-Shitrit, and Adi Shniderman

In addition, there will be a collection of multimedia small works and editions including books, prints, sound, and video by Golnar Adili, Luisa Caldwell, Ragnheidur Gestsdottir, Leor Grady, Eric Lundquist, Elisa Soliven, Curver Thoroddsen, and artists in the show.

While working in various media, the artists in "Urban Legend" share a collective preoccupation with evocative imagery. Video, painting, sculpture, prints, and installation contain fleeting glimpses of recognizable structures; traces of architectural, industrial, and found objects suggest allegorical points of contact.

"Urban Legend" will be at Vaudeville Park for one weekend only.
Saturday, May 7th 2-6pm; reception from 6-9pm
Sunday, May 8th 2-6pm

Vaudeville Park is a NYFA funded gallery and multimedia space
26 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn
L train to Graham Ave

www.vaudevillepark.org

Tim Hetherington

I keep coming back to this story, this man and his art and am reminded that all the images we see are taken by someone.

abcworldnews:

War Photographer Tim Hetherington Killed in Libya Attack

*Above photo taken by Tim Hetherington, this picture won him the World Press Photo of the Year.

Award-winning war photographer Tim Hetherington and Getty photographer Chris Hondros were killed in Misrata, Libya, today in a mortar attack, colleagues told ABC News.

Hetherington, one of the best known photojournalists, produced powerful pieces for ABC News’ “Nightline” from the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, and for the documentary “Restrepo,” which won an award at the Sundance film festival last year.

Three other journalists were wounded in the same attack, including Andre Leon and Michael Brown. The identity of the fifth reporter has not yet been confirmed.

“Tim was one of the bravest photographers and filmmakers I have ever met,” said ABC News’ James Goldston, who worked closely with Hetherington as executive producer of “Nightline.”

“During his shooting for the Nightline specials he very seriously broke his leg on a night march out of a very isolated forward operating base that was under attack. He had the strength and character to walk for four hours through the night on his shattered ankle without complaint and under fire, enabling that whole team to reach safety.”

Hetherington was embedded with the Army unit in Afghanistan when Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta put his life on the line to save his comrades. Giunta later became the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since Vietnam.

“Thing about the wars in Afghanistan, they’ve been known as the ghost wars, you know, because not often does one really see the enemy,” Hetherington said of the battle in an interview with ABC News last year.

The Laundromat Project (The LP) and NYFA's Immigrant Artist Project

Skill Share Participant Application

++Apply Now++

The Laundromat Project (The LP) and NYFA's Immigrant Artist Project have partnered to present a day-long skill share that focuses on sustainable strategies for New Yorkers to cultivate and beautify their urban spaces. Hosting a variety of workshops and demonstrations, which focus on environmental awareness, food cultivation, and urban beautification the day is structured as an opportunity for artists, urban dwellers, farmers, and food activists to teach and learn from each other. The mission of this event is to empower urban communities to beautify and utilize underused public spaces while creating an open forum for all who are interested to gather and exchange ideas and practices around responsible agricultural and environmental stewardship. The LP and NYFA's Immigrant Artist Project are currently seeking to work with artists, farmers, and food activists who are interested or already engaged in projects at the intersection of art, activism, and sustainable food systems.

Understanding that creativity is a central component of healthy human beings, vibrant neighborhoods, and thriving economies - The LP organizes art programs in laundromats throughout New York City through its two core programs, Create Change and Works in Progress. By bringing art to where our neighbors already are (everyone has to do their laundry), this community-based public art non-profit aims to raise the quality of life for people of color whose incomes do not guarantee broad access to mainstream arts and cultural facilities.

For NYFA' s Immigrant Artist Project, which provides immigrant artists with tools for their creative growth while building their sense of social engagement, this is a platform for some of its diverse constituents to acquire knowledge relevant to their artistic practice while providing beautifying perspectives to community space. These artists will have the opportunity to exchange their ideas and skills with sustainable food practitioners and urban dwellers and expand their community.

In light of the growing green movement, this skill share will provide fertile ground for a timely exchange between activists, art practitioners, farmers, and the public. We call on artists, farmers, and food activists to join this forum to make sustainable living a more accessible and equitable practice.

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is the most famous artist in China, best known for his iconic "Bird's Nest" stadium that was the focal point of the Beijing Olympics.

Ai has always pushed the envelope, both with his internationally-acclaimed art and with his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government.

But these past weeks have brought Beijing's harshest crackdown on dissidents in more than a decade. And on April 3rd, government agents arrested Ai at the Beijing airport and seized papers and computers from his studio.

We don't know where Ai is now. The Chinese government is holding him on flimsy charges of "economic crimes" -- an allegation often used to silence dissenters.

Twelve leading figures in the international arts world, including the directors of the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and Tate Museum, have started a petition on Change.org demanding that the Chinese government free Ai Weiwei.

The regime in Beijing has proven largely resistant to pressure from foreign governments. But they've made a huge push to raise China's profile in the arts -- the government just finished building the world's largest art museum. Widespread condemnation, led by the arts community, may be our best chance to save his life.

Please sign the petition to free Ai Weiwei as soon as possible:

http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei?alert_id=fxCNwgJNhz_ofZvlqGUkq&me=aa

Thanks for taking action,

- Weldon and the Change.org team

2 good art pieces

I have seen a lot of art in the past few months and two things have stayed with me. One, "Snow White and Rose Red," a film based on the Brothers Grimm folk tale directed by Lotte Reiniger (1953). Lotte Reiniger (June 2, 1899 – June 19, 1981) was a German silhouette animator and film director. A few of her films can be seen on YouTube. They're breath taking.

The other, another film is The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan. Both art experiences happened with Grant on Saturday excursions when the best art happens.

Distracted

I'm a little distracted today. I'm fighting a sinus infection while preparing for tonight's

Tour Bushwick, meeting on the L platform at 8th Ave., by the front of the train at 6:15pm.

Or meet us in Bushwick:

7 pm Meet at Storefront

16 Wilson Avenue, Brooklyn
Greg Kwiatek's new paintings

8 pm Walk to Norte Maar
83 Wyckoff Avenue, #1B Brooklyn

view The Boys of Bushwick (with Ellen Letcher)

9pm Centotto

artworks and writings by Jim Herbert, Thomas Micchelli,

Matthew Miller, Adam Simon and Don Pablo Pedro
250 Moore Street, #108

If you can't come along, I'll miss you.

GREG KWIATEK "La Luna," 2010

(Anyone can email me to receive a PDF of readings from Centotto's The Ruminations Anthropocentric, or Conchogenies Anthropo-Archival which includes reflective essays on Max Beckmann, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Jean-Luc Nancy, Tom Morton and Gaston Bachelard.)

Thanks!

Austin

From Paul - FINALE Fri.

Adam Simon

Matthew Miller

Thomas Micchelli

ESIBIZIONI, APERTURE, MOSTRE :: da Centotto

5 aprile MMXI

Salve,

Please join us this Friday, 8 April, from 7-10pm for the closing of Ruminations Anthropocentric, or Conchogenies Anthropo-Archival, the current Centotto simposio exhibit featuring artworks and writings by Jim Herbert, Thomas Micchelli, Matthew Miller, Adam Simon and Don Pablo Pedro. Details regarding the exhibit are here. If you would like to receive a PDF of the simposio packet, featuring the artists' reflective essays and related marginalia, write back to request one. I'll send it along with the warm embrace of an email attachment.

Some of the artists in the exhibit will lead an informal conversation about the simposio at approximately 7.30. Promptly thereafter, provided we reach an appropriate quorum, we will also host a brief discussion concerning the validity of Centotto's possible bid for a seat at the United Nations Security Council.

Or maybe we'll just recommence mingling, which we'll later carry over to The Narrows, where the drink menu will be adorned with several new cocktails to usher in our now somewhat-more-than-incipient spring.

Maestro di cocktail Keith recommends the Anaglypta. It should furnish a fine massage for your visual cortex.

On that note, we look forward to seeing you all very soon.

Grazie, a presto,

Paul

n.b. Several details regarding the forthcoming Centotto interstizio exhibit, Landscapes Metamorphic, Topologies Chromatoplastic -- featuring works by Cynthia Hartling, Francesco Longenecker, Layton Hower and MaryKate Maher -- are here. See you on that Friday if not this one, or both, etc.

n.b. If you would like to be removed from this email list, I'll be happy to put all the requisite paperwork in the mail. Or I'll just find and delete your email address, whichever you prefer. Reply to let me know, grazie!

Centotto :: galleria [simposio] salotto

250 Moore Street, #108

Brooklyn, NY 11206

http://centotto.com

+1.908.338.3590