Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Skylar Fein's "Remember The Upstairs Lounge" Opens in New York

Skylar Fein's "Remember The Upstairs Lounge" Opens in New York Last night we went to the VIP reception for Remember the Upstairs Lounge. The West Harlem Art Fund is partnering with No Longer Empty for an exhibition in East Harlem at the Tapestry Building this June. So, we went and got to meet the artist and his gallerist. Talking with the artist was good because we focused on New Orleans and its cultural traditions. I think we learned more about the artist from that intense conversation than the formal talk. I like New Orleans. We talked about Louie Armstrong, the Zulu parades, food and the mix of people there. Great city with many contraditions. And the exhibition spotlighted those contraditions because it's about a gay club that was destroyed by arson and seventy five people died. Very much like Happyland in NYC. One door in and out. But New Orleans is uncomfortable talking about its gay underground scene. Just like it's hard for them to talk about race, poverty and other intolerances. I preferred the recreation of the lounge which actually took me to the place. The larger white box space was more modern and as the curator Dan Cameron shared, it offered a fantasy space to interpret the history that took place. I would strongly suggest if anyone goes to the exhibit, try and meet the artist.
Link: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=37709

Saturday, April 24, 2010

GUEST CURATOR



WHAF is so honored to have Ms. Sai Morikawa as a guest curator for this year. Morikawa studied at The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts with Henry Finkelsten and also Mary Beth Mackenzie. She earned a Certificate for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts at the National Academy. Her background in anatomical studies and visual perception is complemented by a focus on the importance of individual expression in the making of art. Her dynamic color brush strokes are influenced by the Abstract Expressionists. She paints mostly from direct observation. She is the curator for our Sleeping Beauty installation that features Mr. Kenjiro Kitade. Public viewing is scheduled for this coming July, 2010.

NEW SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION BY ARTIST KENJIRO KITADE INSPIRED BY THE CLASSIC FAIRYTALE – SLEEPING BEAUTY


West Harlem/Meatpacking District/Woodside … The West Harlem Art Fund and Ivy Brown Gallery are pleased to announce that they will install Mr. Kenjiro Kitade’s work Sleeping Beauty in July, 2010. According to Executive Director, Savona Bailey-McClain, “We are honored to have Ms. Sai Morikawa as our guest curator and Mr. Kitade as our artist for this exhibition. We welcome the opportunity to push the boundaries of public art even further in NYC”. This installation will be in Woodside, Queens on the triangle at the intersection of Roosevelt and 39th Avenues and 66th Street where there is a substantial Asian population nearby. But the organization wants to expose the broader community which is very diverse to new ways of looking at life from familiar stories. The organizers wish to thank the Urban Art Program at the NYC Department of Transportation.

Description of the Project

Reclining Buddha is the imagery that depicts the moment of Buddha’s passing and entry into Nirvana. In Buddhist teaching, Nirvana is the perfect peace of the state of mind that is free from craving, anger, and other affective state. It is also introduced as the “Absolute Truth”.

According to the artist, Kenjiro Kitade, though using the imagery of “Reclining Buddha” sounds interesting, it is too straightforward and it might give a misleading impression to a viewer that the work is strictly taken from Buddhist teaching. What I wanted to address through this work is what I call “Change of Value”, not the Buddhist teaching.

I started searching for similar imagery with the “Reclining Buddha”. It had to have a separate meaning from the religious message. I focused on the configuration of the image that Buddha is laying down at the center surrounded by people. Then I found an image that perfectly matched. “Sleeping Beauty”: a fairly tale classic, the first in the set published in 1697 by Charles Perrault, Contes de ma Mère l'Oye ("Tales of Mother Goose") and later remake in animation and ballet.

A beautiful Princess was put into sleep for 100 years by enchantment of bad witch. She awakes from long sleep by the kiss of true love. I found several similarities in both imageries; main figure is lying down in the center of the image, main character is watched over by loved ones and they are both surrounded by forest or woods. By mixing and connecting both images, I can make a piece that’s separate from strong religious imagery, at the same time, keep my original idea intact. There are similarities in both stories. The keyword is “Awake”. In both stories, the main characters have experienced passing from one world and entering to another world by “awakening”. Buddha was trying to find the answer to the “Absolute Truth”, one day he became “awaken”, and at the end of his life, he finally reached in Nirvana. In Sleeping Beauty, the princess was put into sleep for 100 years and was in a dreamlike state. This separated her from the difficulties and sufferings of real life. But then she awoke and came back to the reality.

After awakening from long a sleep, the princess had to now face reality. She was lucky enough to fall in love with the prince, her true love and got married. But she was no longer in a dream; she had to face sufferings and difficulties in real life. But by facing, experiencing and overcoming the difficulties of life, one could only walk through the pass to the “Absolute Truth”.

Maybe, we are in a dream; trying not to face reality. We know that there are obvious problems and failure in our current system, such as over production and over consumption, but we cannot simply give up because that system has given us an affluent society. But the clock keeps ticking and time will not wait. Now is the time for us to awake as the princess did and face our “bitter sweet” reality.

Artist Statement
Sheep have been used in many metaphoric expressions, proverbs and allegorical stories among different cultures. “Obedience” and “Cowardice” are the typical imagery of how sheep have been portrayed. The relationship between a shepherd and sheep symbolize the relationship between the rule and the ruled. In the guise of sheep, I can present human frailty. The sheep is a metaphor and is use to spotlight human conditions.

My sheep are imbued with human characteristics, feelings emotions, and often times, form. This blurs the understanding of this easily recognizable symbol and all that the lamb characteristically means. What you see is a creature fixed between two worlds that can now tell you a story. I am – as Japanese who is submerged in a foreign culture-like my sheep, transfixed in a world between worlds. I am seated in the place where I see that both worlds can peacefully coexist as one, but only with the ability to yield.

Gas Mask Symbolism
The gas mask represents "anxiety" toward today's environmental issues. It is a metaphor for how we should address environmental issues on a global scale. I wish some day, that we come up with good solutions for today's environment issues, so that she (Sleeping Beauty) will take off her gas mask and awake from very, very long sleep. This is my representation of "hope" for our future.

The site can be reached from either the 61st Street Woodside or 69th Street Roosevelt Ave. stop on the #7 Train and then a short walk to 66th Street.

In Dialogue Exhibition -- Closer Conversation


In June, The West Harlem Art Fund and the Humanities and Arts Division of City College are co-producing the outdoor exhibition In Dialogue. One of the installations is called Closer Conversation and features a series of mailboxes for visitors to submit various messages. This prompted me to look at letter writing in light of the fact that most Americans use hand held devices to communicate as well as texting that forces users to abbreviate most words. Making this discovery was quite nice.


Letter writing traditions

The invention of inks paralleled the introduction of paper. The early Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and Hebrews used papyrus and parchment papers. One of the oldest pieces of writing on papyrus known to us today is the Egyptian "Prisse Papyrus" which dates back to 2000 B.C. The Romans created a reed-pen perfect for parchment and ink, from the hollow tubular-stems of marsh grasses, especially from the jointed bamboo plant. They converted bamboo stems into a primitive form of fountain pen. They cut one end into the form of a pen nib or point. A writing fluid or ink filled the stem, squeezing the reed forced fluid to the nib.

By 400 A.D. a stable form of ink developed, a composite of iron-salts, nutgalls and gum, the basic formula, which was to remain in use for centuries. Its color when first applied to paper was a bluish-black, rapidly turning into a darker black and then over the years fading to the familiar dull brown color commonly seen in old documents. Wood-fiber paper was invented in China in 105 A.D. but it only became known about (due to Chinese secrecy) in Japan around 700 A.D. and brought to Spain by the Arabs in 711 A.D. Paper was not widely used throughout Europe until paper mills were built in the late 14th century.

The writing instrument that dominated for the longest period in history (over one-thousand years) was the quill pen. Introduced around 700 A.D., the quill is a pen made from a bird feather. The strongest quills were those taken from living birds in the spring from the five outer left wing feathers. The left wing was favored because the feathers curved outward and away when used by a right-handed writer. Goose feathers were most common; swan feathers were of a premium grade being scarcer and more expensive. For making fine lines, crow feathers were the best, and then came the feathers of the eagle, owl, hawk and turkey.

Quill pens lasted for only a week before it was necessary to replace them. There were other disadvantages associated with their use, including a lengthy preparation time. The early European writing parchments made from animal skins, required much scraping and cleaning. A lead and a ruler made margins. To sharpen the quill, the writer needed a special knife (origins of the term "pen-knife".) Beneath the writer's high-top desk was a coal stove, used to dry the ink as fast as possible.
Plant-fiber paper became the primary medium for writing after another dramatic invention took place: Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable wooden or metal letters in 1436. Simpler kinds of printing e.g. stamps with names, used much earlier in China, did not find their way to Europe. During the centuries, many newer printing technologies were developed based on Gutenberg's printing machine e.g. offset printing.

Articles written by hand had resembled printed letters until scholars began to change the form of writing, using capitals and small letters, writing with more of a slant and connecting letters. Gradually writing became more suitable to the speed the new writing instruments permitted. The credit of inventing Italian 'running hand' or cursive handwriting with its Roman capitals and small letters, goes to Aldus Manutius of Venice, who departed from the old set forms in 1495 A.D. By the end of the 16th century, the old Roman capitals and Greek letterforms transformed into the twenty-six alphabet letters we know today, both for upper and lower-case letters.

When writers had both better inks and paper, and handwriting had developed into both an art form and an everyday occurrence, man's inventive nature once again turned to improving the writing instrument, leading to the development of the modern fountain pen.

Secret codes and Spy Writing during the American Revolution
British and American spies used secret codes and ciphers to disguise their communications. A cipher is when letters, symbols, or numbers are used in the place of real words. In order to decode a cipher, the recipient of the letter must have a key to know what the coded letters, symbols, or words really mean.
In the letters to the left, Benedict Arnold used a cipher to deliver his messages secretly to John André. The cipher's key was a standard published book, either Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England or Nathan Bailey's Dictionary. When Arnold composed his letters, he first found the word he wanted to write in the key. Instead of writing the word directly in the letter, he wrote down the page number, the line number, and the number of the word counting over from the left. Therefore, each secret word was represented by a series of three numbers. For example, the second word in the letter of July 12, 1780, is "293.9.7" which stands for "wrote." André explained these methods in a letter he wrote on May 10, 1779.
American spies also used this method. After some letters were captured in 1779 by the British, Benjamin Tallmadge created a code using Entick's Dictionary for the Culper Gang.
Arnold and André also used other sneaky ways to hide the real content of their letters. Arnold and André pretended to be merchants. Arnold deliberately did not disguise some words with the cipher so that the letters seemed to be about normal business transactions. Anyone who intercepted these letters would see such business language and think the letters were part of routine commercial deals.
Civil War writing

One of the many treasures from the American Civil War is the vast amount of personal writings that have survived. There are literally thousands of personal letters and journals are still available today for study. These personal accounts help add a tremendous amount of depth to the core material. It is one thing to read about a battle, it is totally another to see it through the eyes of the soldiers that fought and died in it.

Paper was a valuable commodity to soldiers. Many letters in the Civil War collection have additional writing in the margins or have a torn section after the signature. This was probably done to save the unused portion for another purpose. There are letters that have been written on twice, once in a normal left-to-right horizontal pattern and again with the paper having been turned 90°.

Often, letters are meant to be for one person or a particular set of individuals -- a family, a group of friends. The reception of a letter was an event shared by all. One correspondent addresses his letters to "Dear friends" or to multiple family members. Not only was this to save paper, but to insure that those who were illiterate had the chance to "read" the letter.


With all of the hardships of battle, mail delivery continued to exist in the United States during the Civil War. Although channels of communication between the battlefield and home remained tenuous, the mail that did get through was readily welcomed on both sides. As one soldier wrote to his sister and brother-in-law in February 1863, "I sit myself upon my folded blankets with my portfolio upon my knee to pen a few lines in answer to a more than welcome letter just recd. from your hand & which I haste a reply."