Performances – Page 2 – longlistshort

Ugo Rondinone and John Giorno at Gladstone Gallery New York

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Performances, Video and Film, Writers

Jan 172020

Closing on 1/18/20 at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea is Ugo Rondinone’s thanx 4 nothing, a multi-channel video installation that pays tribute to the artist’s late husband, the poet and performance artist, John Giorno.

From the press release-

Rondinone reconstructs the gallery into a black box theater, creating an immersive environment through the use of black-and-white film, minimalist score, and the rhythmic intonations of Giorno’s own voice. This exhibition is a prismatic paean to the poet, raconteur, muse, cultural icon, and New York fixture.

Curator Ralph Rugoff said of the work on the occasion of its installation at Hayward Gallery in 2016:

“In elegantly spectacular fashion, Ugo Rondinone’s 20-screen video installation, “thanx 4 nothing “(2015), presents the American poet John Giorno reciting – though ‘performing’ might be a better word – the titular poem. Written on his seventieth birthday in 2006, and framed as an extended and wide-ranging expression of gratitude to ‘everyone for everything,’ Giorno’s poetic monologue looks back over his life with frank insight and humour, reflecting on loves and losses, friends and enemies, sex and drugs, depression and spiritual acceptance. As presented by Rondinone, whose work inventively interlaces the rhythms of his images with those of the poet’s speech, it is also a dizzying meditation on duality.”

It’s a great poem and a wonderful visual. Surrounded by the poet himself on all four walls of the gallery, you are completely immersed in his reading.

If you are curious about the poem itself, below is a video of Giorno reading it for his 75th Birthday Tour at the Words Aloud 8 Spoken Word Festival at the Durham Art Gallery in Durham, Canada, in 2011.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Made in L.A. 2018” at the Hammer Museum

Art, Artists, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Performances, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film

Aug 312018

Lauren Halsey- The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project (Prototype Architecture) 2018

Lauren Halsey- The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project (Prototype Architecture) 2018

Currently at the Hammer Museum is Made in L.A. 2018, the museum’s fourth biennial exhibition of artists working in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. The diverse group of artists included range in age from 29 to 97. With so many excellent works in the exhibition, it was very hard to choose which of them to highlight. The following are just a few selections from the exhibition that stood out.

Lauren Halsey’s sculptures (pictured above), won the Mohn Award, a jury award which honors artistic excellence. You can also see another one of her sculptures at MOCA, until September 3.

Selection of works by Luchita Hurtado

The paintings above are from the oldest artist showing in the exhibition, Luchita Hurtado. At 97, she is just starting to get recognition for a lifetime of work.

The youngest artist in the show is Diedrick Brackens (shown below) who uses weaving and textile making to tell stories that reflect on cultural and personal narratives from his childhood in Mexla,Texas.

Diedrick Brackens

The most entertaining of the works in the exhibition is OURCHETYPES, created by Jade Gordon and Megan Whitmarsh. Taking up an entire room, it consists of videos, sculptures, and a publication- all dealing with issues of self discovery, adulthood, womanhood, happiness, and success from a tongue in cheek, retro New Age perspective.

Jade Gordon & Megan Whitmarsh, OURCHETYPES

Two additional video installations also worth taking time to watch-

Gelare Khoshgozaran’s Medina Wasi: Connecting Town, shot mainly in Mecca and Thermal in the Coachella Valley, includes footage from US military bases where sets were created to simulate Middle Eastern towns for troops to practice fighting in. She also includes interviews with US veterans who discuss their memories of the landscape when they were in the Middle East.

Neha Choksi’s multichannel video installation Everything sunbright, examines our relationship to the sun and includes images from nature, a dance performance, and children making drawings of the sun- all tying together themes of birth, life, and death.

This weekend Hammer Museum has programming to accompany the exhibition. On Saturday, taisha paggett will present a series of solo and duet dance performances and on Sunday, composer/performer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs is assembling a group of mothers to explore the tropes and meanings of motherhood and Von Doog is offering empathic musical readings in the gallery prior to the performance.

This exhibition closes on Sunday 9/2.

Throwback Thursday- Weezer

Dance, Music, Throwback Thursday

Nov 062014

Weezer- Buddy Holly

This song is off of Weezer’s 1994 self titled debut album, also known as The Blue Album. Both song and album were produced by Ric Ocasek, lead singer of The Cars. The video was directed by Spike Jonze and uses remarkably unchanged actor Al Molinaro from Happy Days in a cameo.

Weezer are playing at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles on 11/7.

Los Angeles Music Shows and Performances- Kraftwerk at the Walt Disney Concert Hall

Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Performances

Mar 212014

Kraftwerk- Trans Europe Express

Kraftwerk is currently on tour performing “The Catalogue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8” at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. There are eight 3-D multimedia performances, each highlighting one of their albums. Last night I saw them for the album, Trans Europe Express, but the majority of the show consisted of their greatest hits, including “Autobahn”, “The Model”, “The Robots”, “Tour de France”, “Radioactivity”, “Computer Love” (sampled in Coldplay’s Talk) and “Musique Non-Stop”. Though the majority of their albums were released between 1970 and 1981, their influence on a wide range of electronic music, from the past continuing into today, was evident throughout their performance.

One of the most interesting aspects of the show was witnessing the group’s prescience as cultural observers, as well as musicians. When the lyrics to “Computer World” began flashing across the screen behind the band describing the elements of a “computer world”, it was incredible to see the relevance to present day. Issues of government spying, as well as the computer’s role in “business, numbers, money, people” and “crime, travel, communication, entertainment” in a song written over thirty years ago, never felt so current.

Here’s a video taken by an audience member of “Numbers/Computer World” when Kraftwerk played at the Tate Modern (the visuals are a little off because of the 3-D).

Los Angeles Art Shows and Performances- Miwa Matreyek at REDCAT

Art, Artists, Dance, Los Angeles Art Shows, Performances

Feb 092014

Miwa Matreyek from TED Talks

Miwa Matreyek is performing this piece, Myth and Infrastructure, (shown above) and her most recent- This World Made Itself at the REDCAT theater. An additional show was added for tonight 2/9 at 7pm- the rest are sold out.

Los Angeles Performances- “Invisible Cities” at Union Station

Books, Dance, Los Angeles Events, Performances, Theater

Dec 292013

invisiblecitiescrowd

Seeing the opera, Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino’s book, was an incredible experience. The audience walked around Union Station, listening on headphones as performers danced and sang around them. At the same time, interspersed among them were travelers en route to other destinations who were often taken aback by the performance going on around them.

Artbound on KCET is currently showing an interesting documentary on the opera also worth checking out.