This past Saturday, Bushwick’s (that little nabe that could) newest talked about address “Castle Braid”, held the first annual MBP Urban Arts Fest. The event featured live graffiti artists, an array of galleries featuring sculptures and painters, free beer, skate demos, DJs, as well as booths to purchase the work, and honestly, is there anything better than all those things combined?. Castle Braid, located on the corner of Troutman at Evergreen, is the new, shiny home to artists including graphic designers, filmmakers, photographers, and musicians. The building is bursting at its seams with both hipsters and amenities for the ultra cool res. With a fully functional multi-media room, screening rooms, a large gym, practice/ rehearsal studios, and a yoga room, it leaves you asking when you would ever need to leave. You can visit the calendar at http://www.castlebraid.com for future events and get your ass to Brooklyn to che-che-check it out!
(R.teal)
I went to the Louvre. What the hell did you do?
London
You don’t have to be sleeping with George Clooney to get tickets to the London Film Festival (October 14 - 29) - but I do encourage it. For the regular peeps, matinées start at a measly £7 and most shows that are billed as fully booked sell a few remaining tickets 30 minutes prior to the show. Skip the bologna ( flicks like ‘Persecution’ and ‘Taking Woodstock’) and grab the real meat ( dark and absurdly funny stuff like Todd Solondz’s ‘Life In Wartime’ or scary Oz-type shit like ‘A Prophet’ by Jacques Audiard). From the line up, most of the best films look dark, morbid, and depressing, but I say soak up all the bleakness and wallow in it - better to do it with movies than margaritas. Maybe.
New York
The New Museum (oh you know you loves it) has two pretty great exhibits out. The first, “Emory Douglas: Black Panther” takes black power to the max, showing Douglas’ best Panther propaganda. The other - “Dorothy Ianonne: Lioness” is all super sexy erotic illustrations that look like they came right out of a comic book written by a caveman. Both retrospectives end October 18 but the best part: entry to the New Museum is free this Saturday (September 26). Prefer to think outside the box? The New York Electronic Art Festival (from September 28 to October 28) has got the city in a techno death grip for the next month. With concerts at Roulette and art exhibitions across town you should be warned: this isn’t just for light-stick wielding candy kid ravers. The festival is also for serious art and technology junkies so you can leave your pacifiers at home.
San Francisco
You know how in the far reaches of Toronto, Cannes, and London, people are watching the most amazing movies ever made ever? Well fuck it. At The Dark Room (www.darkroomsf.com) down on Mission Street, for $5 their Sunday Bad Movie Night takes all the pretensions out of things like “film making” and “well made cinema”. This Sunday geek out with cheesiest of student-teacher lovefests “The Dead Poet’s Society” but please, try not to lick the screen when you see the young and supple Ethan Hawke flexing his - brain. And, in observance of the Halloween Holiday, they’re showing some of the best vampire classics of modern times including: ‘30 Days of Night’, ‘Queen of the Damned’, and ‘Twilight’. Popcorn’s free. Bring your own flask.
Kate & Jon plus Cara, Mady, Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah, Hope, Joel. Equals too much time on your hands if you know who these people are.
Photo: Thomas Mueller
The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, sponsored by Calvin Klein Collection, is set to take place on October 29th. Rob Pruitt, the visual artist who skyrocketed to fame in the late 1980’s, conceived the event as a performance-based artwork which follows the format of a Hollywood awards ceremony. The Art Awards celebrates select individuals, exhibitions, and projects that have made a significant impact on the field of contemporary art during the past year. The event will benefit the Guggenheim, White Columns and Studio in a School. The categories include:
Artist of the Year
Curator of the Year
Exhibition Outside the United States
Group Show of the Year, Gallery
Group Show of the Year, Museum
New Artist of the Year
The Rob Pruitt Award
Solo Show of the Year, Gallery
Solo Show of the Year, Museum
Writer of the Year
Lifetime Achievement Awards will go to artist Joan Jonas and curator Kasper König. Who are you rooting for? Full nominees are listed after the jump.
Read more…
SHOWstudio is inviting young filmmakers, artists, and directors to collaborate in the RAW POWER competition. The winner, chosen by Nick Knight and Alexander McQueen, will direct the Alexander McQueen PUMA Spring/Summer 2010 art movie. For more info visit http://www.showstudio.com/project/rawpower.
Paul Rowland made his descent into the dark and fabled World of Women Supreme to bring his inspirations to life.”Joel-Peter Witkin, paganism, mysticism, vampires, witches—all the things I love,” explained Rowland are the catalyst to these photos. The September issue has 19 different cover girls and an inside fashion story all shot by Rowland. His hauntingly-provocative photos capture his raw emotions and bring his fantasies to life.
V Magazine Special Edition: The World of Women/Supreme is available in select cities as a supplement to V61, on newsstands September 1, 2009.
-Jessica Pages
Beijing artist Song Dong brings his mother’s possessions to life at New York’s MOMA. In his first solo museum show: Waste Not an exhibit running until September 7, Song personifies frugality and a more earth-friendly thought to would- be trash. Objects that would have normally been discarded, are saved for the chance of new usefulness. For five decades Song’s mother had amassed ropes, toothpaste tubes, shopping bags, plastic containers, broken dolls and anything else she deemed salvageable. After the death of her husband the thoughts of her meer thriftiness crossed the fine line into hoarding, and Song convined his mother to let him help her out of her small house brimming with chaos.
-Jessica Pages
Posted by Guest Collective on July 10th | Label:
Art & Design
Illustrator Sophie Blackall brings the missed connections of the New York City Craigslist to life. She selects certain posts and illustrates them on her blog. If you’ve ever spent time on the missed connections section you know that this is some of the most brilliant writing on Craigslist. 
Saturday, June 6, 2009
- m4w - 27 (42nd St and 5th Ave)
So yea…um, looking for the girl who I was dancing with last night, she bit me twice. I forget her name.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
-m4m (East Village)
Phoenix w/crutches
I would love to carry you around piggy back until you can walk again…
Sophie’s statement:
Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I’m trying to pin a few of them down.
-Jessica Pages
