PSFK Conference Singapore

Our friend Piers Fawkes is increasing his ever expanding series of conferences to its first in Asia. It will be held October 8th at the The Asian Civilisation Museum in Singapore. If you happen to be in SE Asia, you should definitely go check this out. Here’s a description from Piers:

location

Confirmed speakers include Jeff Staple (Staple Design) and Jackson Tan (Phunk Studio).

More details here: http://psfkconferenceasia.eventbrite.com/

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Fashion Week Heckler at Bryant Park, New York City.

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Photo courtesy Gwangju Biennale

Photo courtesy Gwangju Biennale

Photo courtesy Gwangju Biennale

South Korea’s Gwangju Biennale opened to little fanfare last week. This biennale is being curated by Okwui Enwezor, the Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President at San Francisco Art Institute. He is a Nigerian-born American educator, poet, writer, art critic, and curator specializing in art history. I think the failings of past Gwangju Biennales were the fact that they fail to draw more contemporary artists. Started in the Fall of 1995, Gwangju is purported to be Asia’s foremost contemporary art gathering. They might have had a peppering of international names, but the art world in Korea, especially events managed by such committees as in this case trend toward the “hotel” art world and thus have very little relevance to the contemporary art goings-on elsewhere. After having a look at the roster of artists included in this year’s biennale, I hope good things will come of this year’s collection of works.

The inclusion of artists like Francis Alys and Byron Kim should make this thing worth a look if you’re headed to Korea anytime soon.

Francis Alys

Byron Kim

7th Gwangju Biennale - September 5 - November 9, 2008

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Fall has officially begun and what better way to welcome the season than an art parade in New York City’s SoHo! This weekend Jeffrey Deitch and friends (including Theme alum Barry McGee and Yoko Ono) will be parading along West Broadway. Over-the-top “floats”, costumes, performance art, and installations on wheels will take over the street in a fun Saturday spectacle. My good homegirl Lynette Astaire will be staging a New Orleans style jazz funeral for her piece The Polaroid Funeral, a lament she concepted earlier this year after the announcement that Polaroid would cease film production. The performance will feature a 6ft custom built casket complete with costumed pallbearers, custom church style handfans, funeral bridesmaids, NYC’s Stumblebum Brass Band, African roots dance ensemble Afro Mosiac Soul, as well as a host of others from the Downtown art community. 

Deitch Art Parade
Saturday September 06, 2008
Along West Broadway from Houston to Grand Street

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It is that time of year again! Summer is winding down and New Yorkers are holding on to every bit of it as they can. What a better way than to attend the East Village Radio Music Festival. This year the lineup features; headliner: Boris; a japanese band who defies categorization, Devin the Dude: whose bluesy voice has not yet hit the mainstream but is coveted by those in the hip hop industry as the genre’s rapper, Awesome Color , I met them at Earthunder: Spirit of the White Buffalo Festival, they are a high energy rock band who just signed to Thurston Moore’s record label; Ecstatic Peace. That is just a small fraction of the great bands that are coming out Saturday September 6th at the South Street Seaport. Oh! The festival is not just music; featured on site is a collaboration with Anthology Film Archives, who will be providing visual imagery which will feature acclaimed avant garde filmmakers. And who can forget Lil’ Frankie’s Pizza… opened in 2002, unbelievable down home neopolitan pizza; the owner Frank launched East Village Radio; a free community radio station which can be heard at the restaurant, online or podcast.

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Photo by Davi Russo

One of our good friends, photographer Davi Russo is part of a group show starting Sep 11. If you’re in NYC, head down to Heist Gallery. Info below.

REVERB is an exhibition about the persistence of an experience that reminds us how unmistakably alive we are. Like the absorption of sound by surrounding walls that trap the echo of its source, these photographs capture the result of experience so vivid and real that it becomes an infinite reverb. Reverb amplifies the raw spirit of a good punk song, defining its essential point, turning noise into a justification of its effect. The photographers presented in this exhibition achieve exactly this effect in their depicted images, capturing life as they live it in the impending now that has no before and whose after doesn’t matter.

REVERB will be on view from September 11 to October 5, 2008.

HEIST GALLERY
27 ESSEX STREET NEW YORK, NY 10002
P: 212.253.0451 E:
http://WWW.HEISTGALLERYNYC.COM

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La Jungla, Wilfredo Lam

Walking through the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes’ modernist building dedicated to Cuban art in Havana, I was moved by the multiple galleries dedicated to the art of Wilfredo Lam, an Afro-Chinese Cuban artist. His abstract and figurative work combines elements of surrealism, cubism, and more traditional forms of santeria imagery often as a critique of society’s treatment of the common man. For the first time in almost 30 years, a large scale retrospective of his work is making the rounds in the United States and is currently on view at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA! A simultaneous exhibition of contemporary Cuban Artist Carlos Luna, who was influenced by Lam’s work, is showing at MOLAA as well. Check it!!

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Photo by Sebastian Mlynarski

NY indie-rockers, Blonde Redhead, have been making music together for over 15 years. Kazu Makino, Amedeo and Simone Pace (twin brothers) released their seventh album last April and have been doing some select tour dates across the US and Europe. Thankfully its summer in NYC and we get to reap the harvest of free outdoor concerts, film screenings, and Shakespearian productions. Check a FREE show at Hudson River Rocks tonite at 7PM!

Hudson River Rocks presents
Blonde Redhead with Eric Copeland
Hudson River Park, Pier 54 (West Side Highway & W 14th St)
Starts at 7PM

Check the below video of “Top Ranking” from their latest album 23. Mike Mills directed the video with Miranda July striking one pose per second!

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Photo courtesy Rich Lim/Beautiful Losers

Please take a kid you know to one of these workshops!

MAKE SOMETHING!! is a series of community and youth-oriented creative workshops produced in conjunction with the release of the Beautiful Losers film. These workshops are taking place in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The work created in each location will form a continually evolving exhibition, which will be open to the public to view. Last week was the workshop with Kaws.

The SF workshops are happening at VASF (1485 Haight St) starting this Sat, Aug 16th through Sun, Sept 21st and will be hosted by the following artists: Thomas Campbell, Tommy Guerrero, Clare Rojas, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Alex Kopps, Jeff Canham, Kylea Borges, and Jessie Spears.

Workshops hours are 11am - 4pm, except Sat, Aug 16th.

Sat, Aug 16th
How to Make Pom Pom’s with Jessie Spears
* 3pm - 7pm

Sun, Aug 17th
Sign Painting with Jeff Canham

Sat, Aug 23rd
Alex Kopps

Sun, Aug 24th
Build Your Own Musical Instrument with Tommy Guerrero

Sat, Sept 6th
Thomas Campbell

Sun, Sept 7th
Zine Making with Aaron Rose

Sat, Sept 13th
Animation/Manipulation with Andrew Jeffrey Wright / Clare Rojas

Sun, Sept 14th
TBA

Sat, Sept 20th
TBA

Sun, Sept 21st
Kylea Borges

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Photo courtesy of Red Bull

This Sunday Red Bull’s Manny Mania rolls into town, on two wheels instead of four. With the focus of the contest being technical tricks, manuals, etc, expect to see some amazing footwork and cunning stunts from skateboard’s roster of household names. Colin McKay, Adelmo Jr, Rodrigo Peterson, Jereme Rogers, Danny Supa, Zered Basset and a slew of other well known names in today’s skate scene will be killing it. Well worth a look if you’re planning to be in NYC.

Photo courtesy of Red Bull

Photo courtesy of Red Bull

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