All-Star Jazz 1958

The Odgen Museum of Southern Art
University of New Orleans
925 Camp Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.539.9600

JTimes All-Star Jazz Show 1958: Photographs by Jerry Dantzic

On April 20, 1958, Jerry Dantzix photographed one of the few studio sessions between jazz greats Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton, who were rehearsing for the Timex All-Star Jazz Show at the CBS Studios in New York City. More than 30 photographs of this historic occasion, as well as a video of the show.

[text and graphic from museum website.]

Gay Icons

National Portrait Gallery
2 St. Martin's Place
London WC2H 0HE
England +44 20 73122490

July 2 – October 18
Gay Icons

Selected by Waheed Alli, Alan Hollinghurst, Elton John, Jackie Kay, Billie Jean King, Ian McKellen, Chris Smith, Ben Summerskill, Sandi Toksvig and Sarah Waters

"Gay Icons explores gay social and cultural history through the unique personal insights of ten high–profile gay figures, who have selected their historical and modern icons. The chosen icons, who may or may not be gay themselves, have all been important to each selector, having influenced or inspired them."

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[Photograph from NPG website. Caption: Gisèle Freund, "Virginia Woolf." Colour print, 1939. Click on image to enlarge. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

Auto(biography)

Gallery 16
501 Third Street
San Francisco, California 94107

Alice Shaw:
Auto(biography)

In her exhibition, Alice Shaw has employed others, such as a handwriting analyst and a psychic, to tell her information about herself that she may not have been aware of. She has taken what she has learned from these sessions and made artwork in response to this new knowledge.

Shaw, primarily known as a photographer, has also used painting, printmaking, drawing, and other media to illustrate her responses. Shaw looks at the theory that 'digital photography is more closely akin to painting than traditional photographic techniques because of its malleability.' She also believes that the digital arts has created a 'society of skeptics.' Auto(biography) sets out to satisfy these skeptics, and suggests 'we should not always believe what we see.'

Through July 3.

[Text and graphic from gallery website.]

Man in the Mirror

Frontier Preachers

The Soap Factory
518 2nd St SE
Minneapolis, MN

June 6 – July 26, 2009
Frontier Preachers

"As cities that sit at the origin and conclusion of the great Mississippi River, New Orleans and Minneapolis are connected by commerce, travel, and folklore. Long after the heyday of the Mississippi River as the central artery in the heart of America, Frontier Preachers developed out of a desire to investigate this rich history through the work of contemporary New Orleans artists Tim Best, Kyle Bravo & Jenny LeBlanc from Hot Iron Press, Aubrey Edwards & Allison Fensterstock, Courtney Egan, Stephen Collier, Sally Heller, Srdjan Loncar, Cynthia Scott, David Sullivan and Dan Tague.

Curated by Jayme McLellan, Civilian Art Projects, Washington, DC

[text and graphic from Civilian Art Projects website. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

New York Night Train

Civilian Art Projects



[graphic from Civilian Art Projects mailing. Click on image to enlarge.]

Chet Atkins

[On the occasion of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the birth of Chester Burton "Chet" Atkins, below a live performance of his first major hit. Headset recommended.]



His trademark "Atkins Style" of playing, which was and is very difficult for a guitarist to master, uses the thumb and first two — sometimes three — fingers of the right hand.

Many happy returns.


[text from the Wikipedia entry for Chet Atkins.]

Bloomsday

"Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin, Ireland, and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce (1882 – 1941) and relive the events in his novel Ulysses (19220, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses. 16 June was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend."


[text from Wikipedia entry for Bloomsday. Photograph from Google image search for 'James Joyce.' Caption: "James Joyce by Bernice Abbott, 1926." Click on image to enlarge.]

¡Salud!

Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
Community Events

341 Delaware Ave.
Buffalo, NY 14202
1.716-854-1694



Monday, January 15, 2009 7 p.m.
Latin America Solidarity Committee presents:
Cuba and Global Health - Featuring a Special Screening of the Documentary Film ¡Salud!
Free

2006, USA
Produced & directed by Academy Award nominee Connie Field

"A timely examination of human values and the health issues that affect us all, ¡Salud! looks at the curious case of Cuba, a cash-strapped country with what the BBC calls "one of the world's best health systems." From the shores of Africa to the Americas, ¡Salud! hits the road with some of the 28,000 Cuban health professionals serving in 68 countries, and explores the hearts and minds of international medical students in Cuba—now numbering 30,000, including nearly 100 from the USA. Their stories plus testimony from experts around the world bring home the competing agendas that mark the battle for global health—and the complex realities confronting the movement to make health care everyone's birthright."

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[text and image from Hallwalls website. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

The End of Oil

Exit Art
475 Tenth Ave
New York, NY 10018

1.212 966 7745

June 13 – July 31
The End of Oil

"A project of SEA (Social-Environmental Aesthetics) , The End of Oil is an exhibition of photography, prints, videos, installations and new media that addresses human dependence on oil and other fossil fuels; the ramifications that this dependency has on the future of the environment and of global geopolitics; and the recent push towards viable alternative energy resources.

In July 2008, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC) announced that the price per barrel of oil had climbed above $130. About five months later, in December 2008, the New York Times reported that oil had fallen below $40 a barrel, less than a third of the July 2008 price. In the first six months of 2009, oil prices seem to have steadied around $55 a barrel. These fluctuating oil prices are evidence of the instability of global oil markets and reminders of our urgent need to develop alternative fuels and forms of energy.

The works in this exhibition draw attention to and investigate the violent conflicts (such as in Nigeria, Burma and Sudan) and negative environmental effects that result from mining and drilling; the politicization of the oil industry; carbon-footprinting; and renewable energy options, such as vegetable and electric-powered cars, geothermal energy, and solar power. The End of Oil does not prophesize a dystopian future, but looks critically at the way in which we use and generate energy, encouraging a dialogue on this issue for the benefit of future generations."

Featured Arists: Khalil Chishtee, Louisa Conrad, Robert Ladislas Derr, Dominic Gagnon, Ed Kashi Matt Kenyon, Michael Mandiberg, Andrei Molodkin and Jo Syz.

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[graphic and text from Exit Art website. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

The Reverse Ark: In the Wake

Contemporary Museum
100 West Centre Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
410.783.5720

The Reverse Ark: In the Wake
through August 22, 2009

"The Contemporary Museum will serve as gallery, laboratory, workplace and studio to explore the social and environmental history of Baltimore"s mills and textile industry in the site-based exhibition The Reverse Ark: In the Wake, on view through August 22, 2009.

Using the concept of an "ark" as a place of preservation and exploration, the San Francisco-based Futurefarmers art collective created a multidisciplinary exhibition that explores culture, science, and the environment. Created using locally-sourced waste and surplus materials including fallen trees, hundreds of floorboards from abandoned row homes, cast-off paper, and surplus clothing and textiles, The Reverse Ark fills the museum with literal and figurative illustrations of Baltimore"s industrial past.

Works in The Reverse Ark mimic nautical elements with interactive components. A massive loom resembles a sail, which visitors can help weave to completion. A printing press, also doubling as a sail, invites visitors to fasten stamps to their feet and press letters onto surplus newsprint. Oars fashioned from harvested floorboards and mounted through the museum walls can be rowed, while a ladder made from reclaimed wood creates the illusion of a mast.

Community involvement was integral to the creation of The Reverse Ark, for which Futurefarmers put out a call for donations of recycled items for use in the exhibition and volunteers to assist in building the ark. This engagement is continued in The Reverse Ark Schoolhouse. In the tradition of free schools and with a shared curiosity about learning, The Reverse Ark Schoolhouse hosts public workshops, readings, and discussions in an exploration of the environmental themes of the exhibition.

Concurrent with The Reverse Ark, the Contemporary Museum is also presenting works by artist Hugh Pocock, in the complementary exhibition My Food My Poop. The exhibition is the result of a 63-day experiment during which the artist weighed all the food and drink he consumed, and the waste he eliminated in an analysis of human consumption and energy production."

[text and graphic from museum press release. Caption: © Courtesy Amy Franceschini, Futurefarmers.
 The Reverse Ark exhibition at the Contemporary Museum. Cross-posted to Signal Fire]

wow

Laguna Art Museum
307 Cliff Drive
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
1.949.494-8971

WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon

"... explores various forms of cultural production based on World of Warcraft in particular and on gaming in general. While surveying Warcraft's Fifteen-year history, the exhibition looks at artistic practices that have been influenced by game culture. The actual works by the producer of World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment, provide a starting point and reference."

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[text and graphic from museum website, which provides the additional information: "This exhibition is generously supported by Blizzard Entertainment, the Samia Family and Tierzero." Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

The Louvre during the War

Musée du Louvre
Paris, France

Through August 31:
The Louvre during the War - Photographs 1938-1947

"Through a remarkable grouping of 56 photographs, this exhibition invites visitors to discover the life of the Louvre during the Second World War.

Bringing together French and German images taken between 1938 and 1947, many of which have never before been on public display, it offers a new perspective on the evacuation and the later re-installation of works amid the upheavals of war."

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[text and photograph from the Louvre website. Caption: "Pierre Jahan / Archives des musées nationaux. "l'ascension de la Victoire de Smothrace." Click on image to enlarge.]

x-initiative

"X is a not for profit initiative of the global contemporary art community that will exist for one year and present exhibitions and programming in four phases."

X INITIATIVE

June 24–28
NO SOUL FOR SALE – A Festival Of Independents
548 W. 22nd Street
New York, New York

[graphic: screen grab from x-initiative website. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

Mbongeni Buthelezi

Pretoria Art Museum
Cnr Schoeman and Wessels Str
Arcadia Park
Arcadia
Pretoria
Republic of South Africa

Albert Werth Hall
Mbongeni Buthelezi

through August 16

[graphic from Seippel Gallery Johannesburg website. Caption: "Mbongeni Buthelezi, Qhum`size (Skipping), 2007, plastic painting, 245 x 520 cm."]

The Way Things Are

"I have this notion that art occurs in the process of life itself, and you don’t have to go outside of the context of your own life. It’s all there, and you just tap into it. You open up to it. You have to make yourself available to possibilities."

David Ireland
August 25, 1930 - May 18, 2009

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[Quote from Oakland Museum website. Image from the Los Angeles Times. Courtesy of Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco. Caption: "Interior view of 500 Capp Street." With "Broom Collection with Boom," 1978/88. Brooms, wire, copper, concrete, and C-clamp. 52 x 31 x 82 inches.]