Manifestation and Archbuilders unite at Pierogi
by Matthew Abate
It's disconcerting how often you can go into a gallery, formulate a clear idea of what the show is trying to say, read the press release and find out that your idea is totally incongruent. Sometimes press releases leave us dumbfounded and feeling like we've read shuffled postmodernist jargon.
Here to break that trend is Pierogi (177 N. 9th Street) with a two artist show dealing with form as structures as art. Bruce Busby and David Brody come together like flour and water creating a kind of alien landscape meets meditation chamber / immune system educational video. Busby's assemblages range in size from snowmobile sized cocoons to teepee sized sanctuaries and "filter" out encroaching ink on paper drawings suggesting malignant sentiments and conditions. The installations are adeptly constructed from parachute and camping materials, but somehow they dodge that late nineties euro-tech backpack feeling and really delivers what the just short of overbearing press release promises: environments that filter the "multi-faceted chaos." But don't expect amazing feats of engineering. Pierogi is a quiet gallery on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood so possibly the work is successful because of the setting rather than an innate functionality.
Complimenting the Busby installations very well but unfortunately sequestered is a collection of David Brody's gouache on paper landscapes. Here the mark drives the composition and morphs into something suggesting an environment. Like cloud gazing, these works slide into Rorschach territory and push the dark buttons in one's subconscious. Be prepared to stare at length.
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13 Artists, One Galleria Galou
by Rachel Hyman
Galleria Galou opened its 3rd Juried show on Saturday, June 4th. This thirteen artist group show was juried by Thierry Alet, Director of exhibitions of Frere Independent, Dean Daderk, independent curator, and Susan Hoeltzel, the director of Lehman College Art Gallery in the Bronx. The works in the show were strong, but for the most part seemed unrelated: it was hard to decipher a curatorial aim outside of the gallery's basic mission of presenting international and local emerging artists.
My favorite pick of the show was a small piece by Maria Elena Alvarez, a Venezuelan artist who works in photography and collage. The work, Lista de Bodas, is part of a larger series of works entitled the Wedding list Project. This collage included a page from a 1940's love novel, edited by white acrylic until it reads only, "he debido comprender. la locura.. irreparable.. comprender.. todas las Fibras emocionales." The delicate work is tucked in the back of the gallery, across from the office door, but engages the area with elegance and a poetic grace. In her artist statement, Alvarez explains mining her source materials from books inherited from relatives who "could never get rid of these items in their lives". The narrative and simplicity of the resultant collage and rewritten text is subtle and evocative.
Other highlights of the show include two of the main pieces in the front room, an installation by Wennie Huang, “Between Heaven and Earth”, and a charcoal drawing by Brooklyn native, Gonzalo Fuenmayor. Huang's installation of hats made from abaca fibers, methylcellulose, nylon, and wool has an ascending rhythm which relates to the shape of the individual hats. The spacing and loftiness of the installation reflect the title of the piece, while evoking references to Chinese work hats. The shapes resonate with the nearby work of Fuenmayor. His 50 x 75 inch charcoal drawing contains a torpedo-like vessel, surrounded by black forms suggestive of dolphins, which arrive in a kinetic spiral from a distant point in the left side of the composition. There's a strong rendering of light in the main torpedo structure, but the forms seem to be dark trespasses in the machinery's universe; they cast shadows but reflect no light of their own. Larger looming gray forms echo the dark pieces, and the hats of the nearby installation, presenting a distance in the repetition. These two works seem to be the only aesthetically linked pieces in the space, and use that resonance to truly claim the gallery room.
Notable works in the rest of the exhibition include Peter Foucault's “Robot Drawing Dog” (which is accompanied by a video demonstration, but oddly, no actual work done by the dog), a tremendously well-executed sculpture from Yonker's Native, Susan Broghel, “99 and 44/100th percent Pure”, which is made from ivory and African soap, and a series of watercolors from Brooklynite Steve McClure. The exhibition, though thematically disparate, has consistent technical merit and aesthetic interest, but, as in any group show, there are definite peaks and troughs in the juror's picks.
Galería Galou is located at 237 Kent Avenue. Gallery hours are Friday to Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and by appointment. A reception for the artists will be held on July 24, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. A viewer was overheard saying, "I want to see what that dog can do."
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Spandex: A Father’s Tale
Perfect Fit at 2nd Annual Billyburg Short Film Festival
by Scott Robertson
The Billyburg Short Film Festival is founded on the principle of expanding the independent film market through the short film, a stepping-stone for all independent filmmakers. The BSFF is also dedicated to enriching the Williamsburg film community, a convergence of up and coming artists and filmmakers.
This year the BSFF expanded into a full weekend event over June 3rd and 4th at famed North Six. The second annual BSFF hosted a kick-off evening showcasing short film works of celebrated independent filmmakers such as Peter Sollett and Michael Showalter.
The festival’s second evening featured the selected films for competition. Amassed from over 140 submissions, a short-listed group of diverse and inventive short films were showcased to over 200 thrilled attendees. But, when all was said and done Matthew Manson’s Spandex: A Father’s Tale took home Best in Show, if for anything because it left the audience laughing…I’m talking tears.
“For me, Spandex: A Father’s Tale is about that time in my life when I could just stay home and watch old Woody Allen and Marx Brothers movies,” says Manson. “It makes me laugh, it makes me feel better.”
And it made the smiling crowd at North Six feel better with its eccentric and mocking tone that documented one father’s hidden rock star past and a son’s unknown future.
Summing up the plot in 67 words, Lindsey is an uncertain high school lad failing music class. His father, who drives him to school every morning after removing his lipstick and spandex, is a former legendary guitarist and rock deity. Despite Lindsey’s skepticism of his father’s obscure basement antics, he accepts his tutelage, striving to win the talent show by harnessing the essence of his father’s rock, his only hope to evade flunking music.
The film is one big old school party, every Spinal Tap fan and air guitarist’s fantasy. With Shawn Sugrue caringly playing Lindsey, you feel an immediate bond and sympathy with his character, as most everyone vividly recalls their awkward high school moments in music class. And if Kevin Cummings, who plays Lindsey’s freaky father George, isn’t every high school child’s dream dad, than I don’t know who is if not Mick Jagger.
Beyond winning Best Film at the revered Billyburg Short Film Festival, Spandex: A Father’s Tale rocked the illustrious Tribeca Film Festival, winning Best Family Short. And why not, with a filmmaker who asked his grandmother at an early age, “how did you make it?” And who replied with a smile, “I never stopped laughing.”
Please, for your sense of humor, check out:
Spandex: A Father’s Tale: www.methelfilms.com
as well as for the best of Brooklyn film:
Billyburg Short Film Festival: www.rabbitinaturtleshell.com
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Charlie Pineapple Theater
The Ripe Stuff for Any Season
by Jessica Williams
Located on a street lined with boxy, post-industrial buildings, an unassuming entrance leads the way to what appears to be a studio loft apartment; only there are a handful of rows containing vivid red seats facing a minimally designed, vintage kitchen. Just in case you forget that you are amidst an intimate Williamsburg theater, the frightened fluffy cat darting back and forth from audience to backstage should act as a reminder.
The Vanderbeet family opened the Charlie Pineapple Theater in December of 2002 with the drama-laced reconstruction of Lyle Kessler’s “Orphans.” John Patrick Shanley’s “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” followed December of 2003 and “Of Mice and Men” maintained the line of rigid, brow-pinching emotional plays in December of 2004. Considering past Pineapple productions, it is no surprise that the latest re-creation of “True West” is equally charged with intense rivalry between two brothers: the desert dweller Lee and film-writer Austin. A fifteen show run completed on June 25th after opening on June 2nd.
Sarah Vanderbeets’ direction of “True West” is a paragon of unrelenting detail in the discovery of the dualities of life and the deterioration of family structures. Successfully, she secured a thick mist of tension to the air throughout the play’s entirety. Mark Vanderbeets’ solid enactment of Lee’s wild, temperamental, intoxicated, undirected nature manifests in a series of blank stares, long lisps and unruly hand gesticulations underneath unmanageable hair and attire. Austin, played by Robert McCarthy presented an annoying, worrisome ivy-league graduate whose only concerns are living the comfortable American Dream via monetary gains earned by pounding upon his typewriter. The duo chip away at each other’s power alongside an ever-present soundtrack of chirping crickets and yelping desert coyotes.
Ben Schiff’s portrayal of the Hollywood movie producer Saul Kimmer is the most believable of all characters onstage. Looking for the next big hit, he is easily wooed over a game of golf with Lee’s action adventure movie plot. Per Saul’s request, Lee bullies his brainy counterpart to write his script for him but Austin laughs violently at the idea of selling out. Austin’s film writing agreement with Saul is pushed aside and a transformation occurs in which the brothers switch roles. The formerly responsible Austin runs on a drunken toaster thieving rampage throughout the neighborhood, meanwhile Lee sobers up and props himself in front of the typewriter. After nitpicking on one another, neither tries to escape, representing the conflict within one’s own soul. A symbolic climactic physical battle ensues as their empty mother, well represented by Joanne Joseph, stands over them. Hopelessness and distance imbue her pleas to cease.
The Vanderbeets are currently completing two original plays to be produced at the Charlie Pineapple by the beginning of 2006. Most of their audience travels from Manhattan to view their re-enacted dramas on 248 North 8th Street. When asked to compare both theater scenes with a few words, Mark Vanderbeets answered, “apples and oranges.” Perhaps this explains why they plan on opening up their current space considerably by knocking down four huge walls to make way for an 800 square foot sprung floor stage for theatre, dance and film, as well as a café area with a lobby in the front.
Interestingly, the venue’s red seats were donated by a generous Alabama theater. Mark and Sarah advertise minimally for their shows and survive on private donations, ticket sales and local advertisements. The space’s floorboards were donated by their landlords and are used to house dance classes as well. Funding has always been an issue and technically the theater has been out of business since February of 2003. “But we’re still here through shear determination.” Talented endurance stands out in performance and any avid theater viewer should not miss the opportunity to see The Vanderbeets in action at the Charlie Pinea
pple Theater.
