Posts Tagged ‘arT scene’
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
 Lemonade IN THE REALM of dance music with an electronic bent, a dexterous band that can channel the genre’s energy and aural acrobatics with live instrumentation has a rare gift. Lemonade, a Brooklyn-based trio, accomplishes this by melding an ever-shifting array of tropical beats and rave sensibilities with punk tactics into a smooth sound that’s packed clubs on both coasts.
Though Callan Clendenin, Alex Pasternak and Ben Steidel met in high school playing in scream-y San Francisco punk bands, they eventually transferred their efforts from the political angst of punk to complex musical experiments, uniting under the influences of Liquid Liquid’s post-disco, A Certain Ratio’s punk-funk and a load of dub reggae.
“Ben was the only other guy we knew who… was into dance music, and knew more about it than Alex and I did, and also knew experimental noise,” says singer Clendenin at the Williamsburg loft apartment that doubles as Pasternak’s home and Lemonade’s production studio. “That was what we were listening to simultaneously. He was literally the only other person in the Bay Area that was a musician that had those exact tastes at the exact same time. So it was fateful, I suppose.”
When the trio formed in 2005, the Bay Area was filled with harsh, moody No Wavecentric guitar bands, Clendenin explains, and Lemonade’s “rave-y elements” were not in line with that aesthetic.
“The total enemy of the punk scene and the hip sort of art scene was a rave or techno sound, especially in San Francisco,” he adds. “That was by far, at the time, the most taboo sound to use.”
But Lemonade’s ecstatic fusion of samples, tweaked synth noises, heavy bass and throbbing beats transcended boundaries, and soon the three were performing at events across the underground music scene, from world music nights to hipster dance parties to techno warehouse throwdowns.
Three successful years into what Steidel (Lemonade’s bassist) describes as an attempt to incorporate dance music into San Francisco’s noise scene, the group packed up and moved to New York. Lemonade released its exuberant self-titled debut last summer, and a slew of accolades, as well as remixes from Delorean and C.L.A.W.S., among others, ensued.
But while the record’s rapid-fire beats sound perfectly suited to a club, its follow-up, the forthcoming Pure Moods EP (due out Mar. 9), comes off like a rowdy street carnival, its tropical polyrhythms defining what Lemonade calls its “Caribbean record.” Cheekily named after the series of ambient, world music-influenced “New Age” compilations released in the 1990s with tracks from Deep Forest and The Orb (both of which Lemonade readily admits are influences), the EP begins with “Banana Republic,” a bouncy, steel drum-punctuated anthem about living in a loft (much like Lemonade’s production studio) whose main portal to the outside world is a skylight.The first single from the EP, “Lifted,” follows, and it too is peppered with sweet steel drums intermingled with a sample of a girl’s echoing laughter and Clendenin’s warm, at times breathy, croon. The only steel drum-less song on the new EP, “Underwater Sonics,” includes drum and bass elements and tinges of chiptune (Clendenin references Sonic the Hedgehog as an inspiration for the track). Inspired by everything from Soca to R&B to Balearic beat, Lemonade defies easy categorization, which suits the band just fine, even though it means Lemonade has few comrades in its style of cross-pollination.
“We’re creating from so many different influences… it’s really hard to fit into some scene,” says Pasternak, the band’s percussionist. “People don’t recognize a lot of the places we’re getting our ideas from.”
Though they reference their compatriots in Tanlines and These Are Powers, two Brooklyn bands with post-punk tendencies and constantly morphing approaches to dance music, as sharing some of their musical interests, ultimately, the three prefer the open-endedness of a singular vision that they can reconfigure as the mood strikes them.
“Every time there’s any sort of scene that might make sense to be a part of, we kind of push.We don’t push the scene away, we just push away from that, because our influences keep changing,” Clendenin says. “We’re still doing exactly what we want, which just so happens to be not what people would expect from us.”
> Lemonade
Feb. 18, Glasslands, 289 Kent Ave. (at S. 2nd St.), Brooklyn, 718-599-1450; 9, $10.
Source: New York Press
Tags: Alex Pasternak, arT event, arT scene, arThou, Bay Area musicians, Ben Steidel, California arTists, Callan Clendenin, dance music, experimental music, Lemonade, New York band, NY music, punk, rave, San Francisco arTists, SF band, techno sound
Posted in arT Events | No Comments »
Friday, August 28th, 2009
 Amazing Designer's Unusial Perspective It’s often said that there are no unique ideas out there – only unique means of executing those ideas. Swiss artist Felice Varini, however, has been executing his incredibly unique ides in a unique way since 1978. His singular style of geometric painting calls into question our ideas about complex art pieces and the interaction between art and viewer.
 A Vision of Unisial Artist Upon seeing Varini’s work for the first time, most people react by claiming it’s fake. Indeed, when looking at a photograph of a Varini painting from the vantage point, the painted object does appear to float in mid-air, like it’s been overlaid in Photoshop. But once you see the same painting from outside of the vantage point, it’s clear that the piece was created in real life without the use of computer trickery. He paints shapes and geometric patterns in three-dimensional spaces, so that when the viewer sees the piece from a specific vantage point it makes sense, but when viewed from outside of the vantage point the shape appears skewed and distorted.
 arT of infinity Though the technique looks incredibly complicated, Varini insists that “anyone can do it.” He says that his type of painting requires no special talent; rather, it requires thinking and choosing the right spaces. The spaces he tends to choose are wide-open interior spaces, such as museums and hallways, or exterior locations like rooftops or even entire villages. His goal, he says, is to explore aspects of the space that have heretofore been ignored.
 arT of Life  arTist school!
Although you can only see the complete, sensical painting from one specific vantage point, Varini insists that the most important aspect of his paintings is what lies outside of the vantage point. The myriad configurations viewable from every other possible aspect are what keep him inspired to continue creating these complex paintings. While the vantage point offers a predictable view, looking at the piece from any other spot creates an entirely new and unpredictable experience.
 The Unknown of Science  Science understood, World Not Thinking and creating much different than most other artists, Varini has indicated that he never considers the viewer when creating his paintings. He doesn’t consider how the pieces may someday be seen because he doesn’t know how or from where the viewer will see them. He simply creates a piece of art and sets it free to have an independent existence. According to Varini, the viewer can see the piece, be part of the piece, or even walk through it without noticing it or being able to identify it.
 Vision: Reality or Sense? In the artist’s words, from an interview with Poetic Mind:
“Everyone knows how a circle or a square looks like. My concern is what happens outside the vantage point of view. Where is the painting then? Where is the painter? The painter is obviously out of the work, and so the painting is alone and totally abstract, made of many shapes. The painting exists as a whole, with its complete shape as well as the fragments; it is not born to create specific shapes that need to satisfy the viewer. The paintings are not defined by the understanding of the viewer or what the viewer sees, but rather exist in their own right, and have their own relation to the three-dimensional space in which they were created. I work with the reality itself, with nature.
 Future, present in past. Although he creates his paintings on-site and usually on a large scale, Felice Varini does not consider himself an installation artist. He calls himself a painter, because regardless of where or how his art is realized, it is – at its core – a series of complex and beautiful paintings.
Source: weburbanist.com
None of the captions, alternative texts, or otherwise related to the according image attributes in any way represent arThou, inc. and, if any, these are solely thoughts and visions of the person who posted them. arThou, inc. is a corporation that encourages people to express themselves in whichever [legal] way possible.The thoughts and expressions expressed on this page, including, but not limited to, pictures are solely that of the individual who posted them or commented or, as mentioned foreabove, about them. arThou, inc. does not necessarily have the same views. arThou, inc. does not have liability for what the members of the corporation or individuals who affiliate themselves with it say or do. arThou is about arT, arTists, love, connections, being free.
arThou, inc. is a hipppporation. Love has to Be Back  Take it or Love it!
The comments were made by luefher; see what he saw.
Tags: arT, arT project, arT scene, arThou, paintings
Posted in arT | No Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2009
 Curator Kathy Grayson A sweeping art show opening in Rome this fall argues that right now is a glamorous and golden age of art in New York City, one of those moments that will be remembered someday as a turning point in art history. Really?
While Italian technology magnate Paolo Barzan certainly has his skeptics of this theory, the collector, well known on the Chelsea scene, will open a new contemporary art foundation outside of Rome in September with “New York Minute: Sixty Artists on the New York Scene.” The exhibition “isn’t a survey, it’s a show about a lifestyle, an art community,” about a glamorous group of artists who collaborate to turn their lives into their art, he says. His foundation, dubbed Depart, (for discuss, exhibit, and produce art) will team with Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art for the exhibition and several related events in other cities.
The New York art scene is in the midst of “a renaissance,” says Kathy Grayson, curator of the show and director of Deitch Projects Gallery, where she met Barzan. The city is headquarters now to not one but three historically important art trends, says Grayson: “Street Punk” (Dash Snow, Kembra Pfahler, Terence Koh), “Wild Figuration” (Jules de Balincourt, Takashi Murata), and the “New Abstraction” (Dan Colen, Sterling Ruby). (Perhaps not incidentally, a spate of the artists in the show have shown at Deitch.) Prominent pieces will include a large work by Barry McGee, and the cop car that Spencer Sweeney suspended from the ceiling at Gavin Brown’s. The shop of “Downtown Don” Aaron Bondaroff will also be re-created, and Snow had been slated to be the D.J. at the opening party.
Not everyone’s signing on to the zeitgeist. “I don’t know if it’s a renaissance … it’s a crew,” says Todd Levin, director of art-advisory firm Levin Art Group and curator of a show currently up at Marianne Boesky Gallery. “The show will be au courant, but some of these artists are selling for six- or seven-figure prices with one or two gallery shows under their belt.”
Whether this is a key moment in art history, we’ll find out later — but in the meantime, Barzan invites artists to debate it with him, and will be sponsoring a residency program in Rome this fall.
nymag.com
Tags: arT, arT group, arT scene, arT show, arThou, Chelsea arT, new york arT, renaissance
Posted in arT | No Comments »
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
 Douglass Parshall (1899–1990), Bathers, date unknown, color lithograph on paper. COLUMBUS, GA.- The Columbus Museum of Art will openthe exhibition The American Scene on Paper: Prints and Drawings from the Schoen Collection on view through September 27. The Georgia Museum of Art developed an exhibition of American works on paper from the Jason Schoen Collection. This exhibition is a compilation of more than 100 prints and drawings from artists that represent the diversity of styles and subjects that encompassed American art from the 1930s through the 1950s.
Often referred to as the “American Scene,” this important period in American art has not had as much exposure and attention as other periods. This exhibition allows for a closer examination of the variety of attitudes and issues that occupied American artists living during those tumultuous years of the Great Depression and World War II. The opportunity to examine first-rate examples of the work of many of America’s most influential artists of those decades is provided through this compilation.
The art on view touches on the very pulse of America with expressions that run the gamut from unrestrained appreciation of the beauty of place to wry commentary on the politics and culture of the time. The diversity of style and subject suggests the energy and creative spirit that defined those years. Enduring the hardships of the Great Depression, these American artists were stimulated by national programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and even when federal funding was not available, their passion for visually relating the many stories that characterized America was undaunted.
Paul Weller’s lithograph movingly captures the lonely and grim reality that Americans faced during the economic disaster of the Depression. Home offers a look at the struggle for survival. The Madonna-like mother and infant huddle beside a “Hoover-town” shack. It is made of a hodgepodge of signboards, corrugated tin and broken timbers and serves as their temporary shelter. Despite the grim circumstances that Weller portrays, the mother figure projects an aura of protectiveness for her child. She displays both dignity and self-worth through her clothing and manner. Weller’s sympathetic picture invites viewers to identify with his subjects and empathize with their troubles.
Douglass Parshall was taught to draw from an early age by his father, the landscape painter De Witt Parshall. He later studied in Boston and Paris. Early on, Douglass traveled with his family to many parts of the world, painting and learning from the varied museums they visited. In the 1930s, he supervised California artists as part of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. While Parshall produced lithographs in addition to oil paintings and watercolors, Bathers is unusual in his work. It takes human figures as its subject as opposed to the landscapes that he often painted. The bathers strongly reflect stylized statuary, especially classical Greek sculpture. Frozen in space as though carved from marble, these California sun worshippers contrast interestingly with the stark landscape of abstracted dunes, clouds and water, as if it is all part of a diorama.
Source: http://www.artdaily.org
Tags: arT, arT project, arT scene, arThou, museum, paintings
Posted in arT | No Comments »
|
