Heading to Montréal for Mutek every year is always very inspirational and fun! Here are some vacation snapshots.
Jeff Mills
Jeff Mills
Jeff Mills
St. James Church exterior
St. James Church interior
St. James Church interior
Old Fashioned Camera Shop
Kink
Alex Smoke
Public Lover
Public Lover
Alex Smoke & Bryan
Palais des congrès de Montréal
Palais des congrès de Montréal
I love the new steps at SAT, light peaks through the glass circles
Fresh dumplings being made in Chinatown!
After a decadent Syrian food meal with Peter Van Hoesen and friends
Artist Kiki Smith and architect Deborah Gans talk about their stained glass window in the Museum at Eldridge Street. Their new design is the culminating piece of the 20-plus-year restoration of this national historic landmark, an 1887 synagogue. Smith and Gans’s design features a celestial motif – illuminated stars in a swirling pattern that evokes the Big Bang.
Listen to the story here
Stained-glass window by artist Kiki Smith and architect Deborah Gans
in the 1887 Eldridge Street Synagogue
Courtesy Museum at Eldridge Street
John Pai meticulously joins welding rods into open steel structures that develop organically as they occupy space.
Photo by Seze
Detail, Photo by Seze
Ilya Bolotowsky Trylon , 1977 (left)
Kenneth Snelson Easter Monday , 1977 (right)
Photo by Seze
more info
Like a vast ship, from the years when the earth was still flat and spices were rare, Lee Bul’s gorgeous sculpture comprised of chains and beaded links took my breath away….
Photo by Seze
Detail of Lee Bul’s stunning sculpture now on view. Photo by Seze
www.lehmannmaupin.com
Last Friday The Bunker presented a Raster-Noton label showcase. Carsten, Frank, and Olaf performed separately, with their own accompanying projected images, and then together as Signal. Their visual and audio work has been a huge influence on me for over a decade and I was super excited to see them live. They exceeded my expectations and did not disappoint. Here are some of my favorite photos I took from the event:
photo by Seze Devres
photo by Seze Devres
photo by Seze Devres
photo by Seze Devres
Full gallery at The Bunker Site
Friday May 16 Beyond Booking Presents
Raster-Noton Showcase:
Signal (Raster-Noton | Berlin) live pa
Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto (Raster-Noton | Berlin) live pa
Frank Bretschneider aka Komet (Raster-Noton | Berlin) live pa
Olaf Bender aka Byetone (Raster-Noton | Berlin) live pa
with opening a/v set from:
Morgan Packard & Joshue Ott (Anticipate, Microcosm | NYC)
Bryan’s Press Release for his night:
We don’t think it is an understatement to say that Raster-Noton is one of the most important record labels in the world. Formed when Carsten Nikolai’s “noton.archiv für ton und nichtton” record label merged with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender’s Raster Music label in 2000, it quickly gained international acclaim with the ARS Electronica award winning “20′ to 2000” series of 12 cds released monthly in 1999, featuring 20 minute sound pieces from electronic music heavyweights like Wolfgang Voigt, Ryoji Ikeda, Mika Vainio, and Thomas Brinkmann alongside the core R-N artists. They have gone on to release many dozens of amazing projects since then, building a core group of fans who pretty much buy everything they put out. The sound of the label is decidedly minimal, composed of micro-elements, glitches, bleeps, static, and electronic interference sounds. Their sound is extremely different than most of the music which has been called “minimal techno” (pretty much a completely meaningless term at this point) in the past 5 years or so. It is deep and experimental, but not without humor and funk.
We have been wanting to present a Raster-Noton label night at The Bunker ever since we saw the same line-up we have for this show in Mutek back in 2004, which completely floored us. For various reasons, we were never able to connect with the label and pull it off on their visits to the USA. Then, back in October, we were at a small Raster-Noton show for Bender and Kangding Ray and Bunker photographer Seze found a cell phone on the floor. She got a panicked call on the phone from the German guy who lost the phone and told him to come back to the venue and get it. He was extremely grateful and bought us a few drinks and started talking to us. He was in town for his opening at Pace Wildenstein Gallery (this is a blue chip gallery for those of you not familiar with the visual art world). We were in disbelief when we put 2 and 2 together and realized the cell phone guy was Carsten Nikolai, and quickly invited him and the rest of the crew to the Thomas Fehlmann show at The Bunker that week. Well, he showed up and had a great time, agreed to come back for a Raster-Noton showcase, and everything fell into place.
The Large Glass at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
photo by Seze
While studying art at Bard College in upstate NY in 1996, I made a trip to Philadelphia just to see the Marcel Duchamp room at The Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was that important to me, and he still is. I made my second trip to the Duchamp room yesterday, 12 years had past and I was still just as thrilled to see his work again. But the real treat was to see his haunting installation Étant donnés that is only visible trough a peep hole.
Étant donnés interior view
From Wikipedia:
Étant donnés is Marcel Duchamp‘s last major art work which surprised the art world that believed he’d given up art for chess 25 years earlier. It is a tableau, visible only through a peep hole in a wooden door, of a nude woman lying on her back with her face hidden and legs spread holding a gas lamp in the air in one hand against a landscape backdrop.
Duchamp worked secretly on the piece from 1946 to 1966 in his Greenwich Village studio while even his closest friends thought he had abandoned art.
It is made of an old wooden door, bricks, velvet, twigs, a female form made of leather, glass, linoleum, and an electric motor. Duchamp prepared a “Manual of Instructions” in a 4-ring binder explaining and illustrating how to assemble and disassemble the piece.
It wasn’t until 1969 that the Philadelphia Museum of Art revealed the tableau to the public.
Carlos Amorales: Four Animations, Five Drawings, and a Plague at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Surrounded by paper butterflies,
Photo by Bryan
Installation view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Photo by Seze
So beautiful it makes me want to cry…
www.paulvillinski.com
“My Back Pages” (detail) 2007; vinyl records, wire, phonograph, record covers.
“Lumen” (detail) 2007; aluminum (found beer cans), wire, powdered pigment.
Jermey Earhart
Burn Out, and Fade Away , 2007
Hand-cut Plexiglas, acrylic, car paint, airbrush, black light
Goff + Rosenthal Gallery
Chiharu Shiota at Goff + Rosenthal Gallery
Photo by Seze
photo by Seze
photo by Seze
