a x e s m u n d i

Thoughts | YOGA OF YOUR MIND (& BODY)

2012-01-19T12:37:00.000-08:00

The sensationalist article “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” (NY Times magazine, January 8) provoked countless reactions from yogi and yogini —and from the studios and multi-billion fitness industry with the word “yoga” in their branding and labels.
I am a certified hatha yoga teacher and have been a yogini for over two decades, before it became trendy and then mainstream. My hatha yoga practice spanned many different traditions and styles, from “classic hatha” to “vinyasa flow”, “ashtanga” and “kundalini” —quotation marks have a reason, as it will be explained later. I often resorted to yoga for solace, stress release, flexibility or strength training, as a morning prayer or for relief from fibromyalgia symptoms. Sometimes minor injuries resulted from inadequate prior warm-up, but definitely I never suffered major damage from my yoga practice. So I was quite puzzled reading that “some yoga postures threatened to cause strokes even in relatively young, healthy people” or that there are cases in “which yoga’s extreme bending and contortions resulted in some degree of brain damage.”

Is yoga to blame? My answer is no, as I strongly believe that the cause of physical injuries is strictly related is how yoga has been taught and learned in the western world over the last two decades.
Yoga is a 5000 year old discipline, born and practiced (until less than 100 years ago) almost exclusively in India, a country with a culture, geography, climate and lifestyle very different from the western world. Yoga is not only a series of physical exercises, but also a philosophy, spiritual belief system and lifestyle: yoga is overall an integrated discipline and practice where body mind and spirit are interconnected. A rigorous written discussion of yoga can be found in the “Yoga Sutras” a compilation of 194 sutras (aforisms) attributed to Patañjali (2nd century BCE)
What is commonly referred to as yoga in our contemporary vocabulary should instead be called “hatha yoga”, as one of the branches of yoga dealing with the physical body. Hatha yoga was introduced in the 15th century by Yogi Swatmarama in the classic Hindu text “Hatha Yoga Pradipika.” The treatise presents a series of asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing techniques) which can aid in purifying the body to achieve optimal conditions for meditation. Asana is defined already in the “Yoga Sutra” of Patanjali as “a steady, comfortable posture (sthira sukham asanam)”.
This semantic introduction is not a scholarly diversion, but can help to explain why I believe injuries happen in hatha yoga as practiced here.

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit yuj (union), and the union in hatha yoga happens at different levels, including the union between breath and movement and the union between the body and the mind, which can be interpreted in our western vocabulary as awareness of movement. Mindfulness is what perhaps differentiates hatha yoga from the majority of physical exercise routines we are accustomed to. And mindfulness is often what is missing from the many styles derived from the original yoga asanas.

Typically hatha yoga instructors, especially in fitness centers, have very little training in yoga philosophy or even in anatomy and physiology. The often twenty-something instructors have flexibility and agility —by birth or obtained through other types of exercise training— and teach twisting and extreme back bending without the proper physiology knowledge, measuring by their own body capabilities. Often no consideration of the individual student's physical background is given and asanas are demonstrated without modifications. “One size fits all” does not lead to a safe hatha yoga practice. Every person has a different body and our own body flexibility and strength changes with age, seasons and even time of the day. For instance, my range of flexibility changes dramatically —low to high— from morning to evening; in my individual yoga routine, I have different sequences for the AM or PM practice. Inversions should not be practiced during the menstrual cycle or with a blood-pressure conditions or glaucoma. And there are many other asanas which should not be practiced in the presence of chronic or acute medical conditions. Warning the student of negative effects was very much emphasized when I attended the teacher training at Integral Yoga Institute, one of the oldest yoga communities in the US.

Temperature is another major influencing factor in many hatha yoga related injuries. Warm-ups and cool down are common in any athletic training: the increase of blood flow to the working muscle results in decreased muscle stiffness, improves elasticity and reducing the risk of strains and the range of motion around a joint is increased. Blood vessels also dilate with increased heat, lowering the resistance to blood flow and stress on the heart. With the rising of blood temperature, the binding of oxygen to hemoglobin weakens and the oxygen is more available to working muscles, improving endurance. Hatha yoga classes are instead taught usually without proper warm-up routines, leading the student to the bending, twisting and jumping of numerous sun salutations routines (a typical class opener) without adequate rising of the natural body heat. We should not forget India’s climate with temperature much higher than ours, making not necessary warm-ups before the asanas practice. ENERGIA, my yoga inspired routine includes 10 minutes of cardiovascular movements, inspired by Kundalini yoga, right after the initial centering sequence . The Indian lifestyle, where cross-legged sitting positions and squatting was part of daily life (as mentioned in the NY Times article), also promotes a greater natural flexibility. So is the Indian vegetarian diet, much better suited to the asanas and their influence on internal organs.

Another major cause of injuries is the competitiveness of our culture, which is often present in the group practice. Looking at the flexible twisted bodies of the instructor or the other students compel us to go beyond our own body limitations, causing frustration or injuries: we are constantly brainwashed to achieve the look and coolness forced upon us by our consumerist culture, often coming from the fashionable gym du jour with the photos of sexy models performing a dhanurasana wearing a bikini—New Yorkers know what I am talking about :-)

These are my initial reactions and thoughts on such an important topic, more to come soon on dogmatism and hatha yoga celebrities. In the meantime my advice is very much inline with the good old common sense: practice hatha yoga with mindfulness of how you move and breath, without challenging your body but understanding what causes discomfort in asanas; you will progress into flexibility and strength with a regular practice. And, instead of forcing your body to twist like a pretzel, educate your mind on yoga as an integrated discipline, science and lifestyle, much older than the health club schedule.

Shanti

Martin Luther King "I Have A Dream"

2012-01-16T08:39:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from the speech Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties oftoday and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in theAmerican dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the truemeaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all menare created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of formerslaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together atthe table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a statesweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression,will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nationwhere they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content oftheir character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, withits governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition andnullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and blackgirls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls assisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill andmountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and thecrooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall berevealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. Withthis faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone ofhope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of ournation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will beable to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jailtogether, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free oneday.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with anew meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from everymountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedomring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from themighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Allegheniesof Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From everymountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ringfrom every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we willbe able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and whitemen, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join handsand sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last!thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Events | Occupy the Dream

2012-01-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of people of any race, faith and age —many as activists of the Occupy Wall Street movement — gathered at the Riverside Church to honor the spirit of Martin Luther King. The gathering started in front of Saint John Divine, to become a candlelight march to the Riverside Church.

Short speeches alternating to music performances made this celebration greatly inspiring, and giving hope for real change. The music included soul, hip-hop, country and chanting from Buddhist Monks. The call for economical justice —enmesh with world peace and respect for the our planet resources— is the common goal for this leaderless non-violence movement, as the world-spread Occupy becomes increasingly representative of the interests of the 99% of people.

For me one the most beautiful moments perhaps was the silent Buddhist meditation initiated by the Buddhist Monk Rev. T.K. Nakagaki; it reminded me of the 1991 sunrise meditation for world peace with the Dalai Lama, one of the most powerful moments of collective energy.

A gathering which filled my heart with hope and gave energy to continue the daily struggle, making the Martin Luther King dream alive as:

“We believe in a world in which all people are created equally in all nations, of all faiths”

Vernissages | NYC, January 12

2012-01-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Shirin Neshat at Gladstone Gallery

Paula Sher "Maps" at Bryce Wolkowitz

Thomas Scheibitz at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

HoodWincked at Nyehaus

And of course, Damien Hirst "The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011" the exhibition vernissages took place at all of Gagosian Gallery's eleven locations in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva, and Hong Kong. As usual, no photos allowed!

My Evening Walkabouts

Vernissages | First of 2012

2012-01-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

James Nares "1976: Movies, Photographs and Related Works on Paper"

at Paul Kasmin

supernatureal at Mihako Yoshinaga Art Prospects

Tula Telfair "Out of Sight: Imaginary Landscapes" @ Forum Gallery

Events NYC | The first sunset of 2012

2012-01-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

As seen from Central Park:

Events | Last Sunset of 2011 in NYC

2011-12-31T16:35:00.000-08:00

Movies | "Pina": Life as Dance

2011-12-30T12:24:00.000-08:00

Dance as language or celebration of movement is not new and there are countless movies on dance. So I am wondering and trying to answer what made the movie “Pina” so special and memorable. Pina” is a 3d film/documentary of several performances of the late Pina Bausch “Tanztheater” The director Wim Wenders is one of the most profound storytellers of cinema and in his movies images tell stories as much as words. In “Pina” Wenders’ visual poetry makes compelling use of the 3d format. Not new, as 3d movies bring space to a 2d flat medium, the projection screen; often the architectural features of sets —thinking of the other remarkable feel good 3d movie “Hugo” are greatly enhanced by the 3d technology. But in “Pina” besides the set is the movement of the dancers’ bodies through space which becomes quite compelling experience for the viewers. From the simplest step to the most acrobatic jumps and falls the viewers feel surrounded by the energy of the larger than life dancer’s bodies, often emphasized by the lighting.
And of course Pina Bausch’ choreography makes the visual story captivating. Her work is defined a contemporary form of Tanztheater ("dance theatre"), the expressionist dance developed in Germany in the 1920s. The vocabulary is based on movement as expression, in contrast with ballet or other structured forms of dance, leading to a fusion between dramatic and rhythmic movement. The use of props is another important element of the performance: the dancers interact with chairs, sand, ropes, veils, water almost as extension of their body. Beauty often derived from the lyrical abstraction/presentation of otherwise ordinary objects or simple movements of daily life. In Pina dance is a component of daily life, as the set design goes beyond the stage to expand in a wider context of real places, either urban or landscape, offer the set. Dancers perform in the Schwebebahn (floating tram) of Wuppertal or in highways; any place can offer a pretest to express “joie de vivre” or any other feeling —quoting Matisse another visual artist who was intrigued by “la danse” as expression.

The story is also told through a few words from the dancers of Pina’s Wuppertal Tanztheater: besides their interaction with the charismatic choreographer, they reveal their life in a dance company as a greater community —perhaps utopian. The dancers span different generations making a statement that dance, at least in Pina’s world, is ageless.

And beauty and celebration of life can be found and expressed everywhere.

pina
dance dance otherwise we are lost

Events | Winter Solstice 2011

2011-12-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

The December solstice —the winter solstice in the Norther Hemisphere— occurs at 05:30 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) on December 22, 2011.

The winter solstice occurs when the Earth axial tilt of its polar hemisphere is farthest away from the Sun, at an angle 23° 26'.

NYC, Bright Lights, Big City

2011-12-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

Strolling Madison Avenue and Fith Avenue, glimpses of season lights:

Events | Getting Closer to the Higgs Boson "God Particle"

2011-12-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

Today the two teams at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced that they are very close to the finding of the Higgs Boson, described as the “God particle”, the quantum unit which will help to explain the origin of the Universe. They expects final findings in 2012.
For more information visit CERN

Vernissages | NYC December 8, Chelsea

2011-12-09T16:00:00.001-08:00

Clement Meadmore at Marloborough Gallery

Bosco Sodi "Ubi Sunt" at The PaceGallery

Peter Liversidge"Where We Begin" at Sean Kelly

Harry Roseman "Enfold" at Nancy Margolis

Vernissages | December 1

2011-12-08T11:08:00.001-08:00

"Night" curated by Antonio Petracca at Kim Foster Gallery

"Creomatic" at Eyebeam

Rebecca Sherman "Night Light" at one of the Chashama spaces

events | Shopping Is the Opium of the People

2011-11-24T08:39:00.001-08:00

KarlMarx wrote in 1843 "Religion is the opium of the people" ("DieReligion ... ist das Opium des Volkes"). This statement became paraphrasedin many forms including the popular “Sport is the opium of the people”. As theholidays approach, a paraphrase Karl would not object to, is “shopping is the opium of the people". The beginning of the holiday season,is announced by the bombarding by countless ads in many form and format forblack Friday and cyber Monday; it also marked by the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (started in 1924),which I cannot escape living a few blocks away from the balloon inflation andbeginning of the parade.

Cheering crowds start flowing in the neighborhood fromthe Wednesday afternoon; even this year, in spite of the economical crisis andOccupy Wall Street protest few miles away, the shopping and its celebrationseems to be untouched in the hyperrealistic Macy’s parade, where inflated thirty-foot high balloons float (often face down) among the imponent Central Park West trees and buildings. The inflated balloons, are quite a metaphor for the current economy but hopefully will not burst in the crowds.

camminando | Madrid Barajas Airport

2011-11-16T06:13:00.001-08:00

On my way back to NYC I had a pleasant layover at the Madrid airport. The Barajas Airport ranks as 11th busiest international airport in the world and 4th busiest in Europe and was recently (2006-2010) renovated. As a former airport terminal architectural designer for the NY JFK American Airlines terminal, I appreciated by the simple structural design of tree shaped steel columns supporting waveform trusses —waveforms and trees columns has been the main formal vocabulary for airport terminals worldwide. My criticism: the structure is unnecessarily, creating waste in energy consumption for heating and cooling, not to count materials and labor. But perhaps terminals are our time cathedrals, architecture connecting earth with sky, so scale is important. The color scheme consistency between paint structure and signage represent a good design and helpful for the passenger.

Excerpts from the multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Vernissages | Roma, Andrea Fogli alla Nuova Pesa

2011-11-14T22:09:00.001-08:00

camminando and vernissages | Roma, November 12

2011-11-13T10:31:00.001-08:00

My evening walkabouts are filled with memories from the city where I was born and grew up, in places where thousand years of history intersect over two decades of personal history...a time-space contraction while I walk and walk. I often see a poster with Wim Wender's movie "Pina" with the subtitle "dance dance otherwise we are lost". It feels like a reminder to myself "walk, walk otherwise I am lost"

Vicolo delle Palline a Borgo Pio

Palazzo della Cancellera

Marcello Maugeri "Circus" at Ugo Ferranti

Piero Dorazio e gli artisti di Forma1 at Spazio 88

Tevere seen from Ponte Sisto

Santa Maria in Trastevere

Arco di San Calisto

Santo Spirito in Sassia

San Pietro tells me "home sweet home"

My walk end at 10:30 pm, I am finally home, exhausted. My pedometer says that my daily walking amounted to 26 kilometers.

Excerpts from the multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Rome Contemporary Architecture: MAXXI

2011-11-12T23:16:00.000-08:00

Roma’s urban texture is based on the intersection of axes, which are often centered in a piazza, as an expanding spider web connecting with other webs of axes. The complexity of places and visual beauty of the urban fabric is often related to the axes connections and intersection, which create frames of views where the architecture of the buildings, often connected by arches or porticos continues in streets and squares, in the making of places.
Rome does not have much to present forcontemporary architecture and unfortunately the very few examples, signed by archistar like Richard Meier and Zaha Hadid, do not relate to the urban fabric at all. The relationship with the site is always been the very first condition to be analyzed in any architectural design intervention, as learned from Architecture 101 —or at least when I studied architecture in the University of Rome. And Rome is quite a site: thousand years of history can be still perceived in the many layers of art and architecture of hundreds of piazze, vicoli, archi, fontane, obelisks.
My visit to the contemporary art museum MAXXI foundation confirmed my considerations, initiated by the Ara Pacis museum designed by Richard Meier. The MAXXI, signed by Zaha Hadid is located in a perhaps less prominent historical area, quartiere Flaminio, yet close to the river Tevere and to a masterpiece of modern engineering, Palazzetto dello Sport by Luigi Nervi.
The MAXXI would be a per se interesting ”blob”, following a vocabulary of linear geometries, cantilevered volumes and forms defined by circulation patterns. But it lacks integration with urban context. Another major criticism is in its formal complexity which competes with the artwork exhibited. Usually contemporary art, especially three-dimensional installations are best presented and perceived in a “white box” container. And the building also presents the typical blob characteristic of structure unrelated to form, so different from almost any example of architectural vocabulary present in Rome, from classical to Renaissance and Baroque.

Excerpts from the multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Rome Contemporary Architecture: Ponte della Musica

2011-11-12T08:53:00.001-08:00

My morning walkabout theme is contemporary architecture in Rome North. Ponte Della Musica is my last encounter on my way back home.

The pedestrian bridge signed by Buro Happold just opened in spring 2011 and connects Piazzale Gentile da Fabriano (quartiere Flaminio) with Lungotevere Marasciallo Cadorna (quartiere della Vittoria) . The steel and reinforced concrete structure spans over 190 meters and include two tilted arches ,diverging from the base. Clean and elegant design, although not breathtaking. I liked better than the MAXXI ( my critique is coming soon), at least some reference to the site. I read about it and sounds like the bridge is quite underused, with an hourly traffic only 40 pedestrians.

Excerpts from the multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Rome Modern Architecture: Palazzetto dello Sport

2011-11-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

The 1958 Palazzetto dello Sport (Pier Luigi Nervi and Annibale Vitellozzi) is the modern architecture jewel of quartiere Flaminio. The sixty-meter diameter reinforced concrete dome is made of intersecting radial ribs, which resemble the spiral configuration of sunflowers. A great example of form follows structure follows function!

The wood polyhedric sculpture in front of the Palazzetto dello Sport

Excerpts from the multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Vernissages | Rome, November 10

2011-11-11T04:00:00.001-08:00

"Guide alle aree abbandonate del fiume Tevere", Fondazione Pastificio Cerere

Pasquale Polidori "doppio registro / double speech" a cura di Silvia Bordini

al MLAC

Rome and Contemporary Art | Luigi Di Sarro

2011-11-11T03:41:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I became familiar with the work of Luigi Di Sarro, an important artist tragically deceased in 1979. Di Sarro’s oeuvre was at the intersection between art and science. The artist was also a practicing medical doctor and surgeon and one of his latest investigations was anatomy as interpreted in art. The work goes across many disciplines, methodologies and media, often transforming two-dimensional materials such as metallic mesh into sculptural morphologies. I was very intrigued by his early geometric explorations, where formal geometries transcend into organic forms often resembling biological processes. His work also embraced many different media: photography, drawings, sculpture, site specific installations and performance. I was extremely impressed about his innovative approach, although developed several decades ago, still contemporary and fresh.
Very inspiring work: to learn more visit Centro Luigi Di Sarro

camminando | Roman Walkabouts

2011-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Rain finally stopped after sunset and I started my walks in the darkness celebrated by the Roman theatrical street lighting.

Baroque is the theme du jour and obelisks are a recurrent encounter, while the country is anxiously waiting for Berlusconi's resignation. I walk by Palazzo Montecitorio,

My itinerary is marked by my visual memories as recorded by my smart phone —the only camera of my walkabout, as usual.

Piazza del Popolo: Chiese Gemelle

Piazza del Popolo: Obelisco Flaminio

A courtyard in Via Margutta

Borromini: Palazzo di Propaganda Fide

Colonna Traiana in Piazza della Colonna, in front of Palazzo Chigi

Palazzo Montecitorio,where the Italian Parliament meet

Pantheon

Piazza Navona: Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi facing Borromini's Sant'Agnese

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Islands: Ischia

2011-11-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

It seems like traveling to a different universe, when a 40-minute hydrofoil ride takes me to Ischia, away from the tense Neapolitan scenes where all the locals approached when asking for directions to Molo Beverello, tell me to be careful with my belongings. Ischia is the closest place I envision paradise to be like, and I am still stating it after my fourth visit to this island.
Ischia is a volcanic island about 30 km from Naples. Hydrotherapy, blessed by is one of the many lures the island offers Among the others: scent of flowers and lemon trees, several hundreds feet cliffs diving in the crystal clear mar Tirreno. Ischia witnessed several thousand years of history: it was inhabited since the Bronze age, as from the Mycenaean pottery findings. Ancient Greeks, Etruscan and Romans followed. Homer and Virgil wrote about Ischia, although was called with different names: Aenaria, Arima, Inarima and Pithecusa.

I would not go in summer as I don't enjoy crowd and noise immersion ---my taste many others do, otherwise the island woul not be noisy and overcrowded in summer. My other visits were in spring, this is my first staying in Ischia in the approaching winter season, in the hope to still enjoy outdoor swimming in the outdoor thermal water pools. The weather in Italy this year is extremely warm (almost 20 degrees Celsius) yet walking to Spiaggia della Citara is not encouraging for a dive in the sea. But the sunlight shining on the ocean is magical and the views breathtaking, my hotel welcoming and beautiful... R&R has finally begun!

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Camminando | Rome to Naples: Layered Decadent Beauty

2011-11-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

While leaving Rome from the Termini station you experience dirty train windows filtering many layers of history and socio-geographical imprints.
Urban scenes mingles with countrysides bucolic environment, it seems to be in stage for a time travel movie on lord Byron, where ancient Rome ruins arise from XXI century residential run-down developments "decorated" with graffiti. It is quite romantic and decadent, especially when experienced in the low sunlight of early morning.
The topology is varied and remarkable as the manmade environment: hills and mountains from the Appenino Campano suddenly rise from flat fields, harvested with any kind of vegetables. I learn from my train seat neighbor that vineyard grows to 12-foot height; the local wine is Asprino Avesano.
Yes, indeed, I am traveling through the magical land described by Homer narrating Ulysses' Odyssey.

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Camminando | As a Tourist in the City Where I Was Born: Finding the Angels

2011-11-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

Every time I go back to Rome, at my very first day of arrival I do my ritual pilgrimage to the places of my childhood. Not that glamorous back then, but recently became extremely popular thanks to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.
Castel Sant'Angelo is my very first visit, while I still experience jet lag from the six hour time zone difference. The initial structure, almost 2000 years old, was built as a mausoleum, called Mole Adriana, for the emperor Adrian, then was transformed by the popes into a castle, becoming a fortress and refuge during invasions and also a prison and execution place. A fortified corridor connected the castle with the Saint Peter's basilica.

This year I am specifically focusing on the many angel statues guarding, Ponte dell'Angelo, the pedestrian bridge connecting Castel Sant'Angelo with the Rione Ponte across the river Tevere.

A magical sunset blesses my visit: the warmest sunlight bathes the building, emerging from the lead color sky.

Roma, you are such a stage set! Isn't life a play?

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Vernissages NYC | Yoko Ono "Uncursed"

2011-10-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Yoko Ono "Uncursed"

October 28- December 10

Galerie Lelong

Vernissages NYC | Chelsea, October 27

2011-10-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

Only visual memories...

Hiroshi Sugimoto"Surface of theThirdOrder" at Pace

Rebecca Horn "Ravens Gold Rush" at SKNY

Richard Artschwager at David Nolan

Events NYC | Madrigals and Metamorphoses

2011-10-22T06:08:00.000-07:00

Out of tune? If your ears like the (artificially) fixed pitch of piano keys, they would have been spinning on your head last Saturday evening as the group Ekmeles presented Madrigals and Metamorphoses at the uptown Italian Academy.

Not everyone’s ears crave such tidiness, and Ekmeles sang their way through a largely 20th-century program of songs by composers known and well-known. But the opening madrigals were by Carlo Gesualdo, a 17th century Neapolitan-born nobleman, murderer, composer. He tuned his music to scales supposedly based on those of the ancient Greeks called “genera”, which leads to intense chromaticism (think pitches between the keys on a modern keyboard).

These were followed by three madrigals by Carl Bettendorf who “decomposed” to various degrees some of Gesualdo’s original music. Folllowing Gersualdo’s model, and in true 20th-century style he added a number of “theatrical” effects, including clapping, laughing, whisperings by the group on the text dealing with Joy and happiness (“Gioia che tutto gioia”). The singers, playing on woodblocks, hammers and metal bowls accompanied their own fine singing.

Thoroughly decomposed was Margin Iddon’s hamadryads. The text was purely phonetic and the pitches were all over the place, relying on heavily experimental tunings. The singers sat at a table as for a banquet, with wine glasses with water at each setting which they used to provide their own accompaniment by running their fingers around the glasses’ rims.

And Elliott Carter, an American composer who will celebrate his 103rd!!! birthday in December was represented by his Mad Regales composed when he was 99 years of age. May we all have such sure-footed creative skills in our 90s. The text by John Ashbery provided the perfect vehicle for Carter’s a capella sextet setting.

Then Peter Ablinger’s Studien nach der Natur took us into the realm of music ecology, where the singers presented sounds of the freeway, the sea, mosquitoes, smoking, a quartz watch, the wind, water drops, etc. Who needs digital sounds when a human voice can create such descriptive sound effects?

Pier Pasolini’s thoroughly baroque texts were set by Johannes Schollhorn in his Madrigali a Dio. Pointillistic notes by the individual singers hovered in microtuned pitches, words were reiterated, repeated and delivered in intense rhythmic declarations, and all at odds with each other. The poet’s vilification of the creator-God leads to his final rejection: “Tua, ch’è in me, a Te non mi conduce.”

events NYC | Homage to Black Mountain College and Its Legacy

2011-10-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

A poetry reading and music performances at the Loretta Howard Gallery celebrated the legacy of Black Mountain College. Readers and performers included Margaret Leng Tan, Francine du Plessix Gray, John Yau, Vincent Katz, Maureen Howard and Dave Sear.

Black Mountain College, was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and other former faculty members of Rollins College, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It introduced a new teaching and learning philosophy, where art was the focus of several disciplines. An interdisciplinary approach, was central to all the student works, including musi composers, poets, and designers, including Buckminster Fuller (who design and built the first geodesic dome) and John Cage. In Black Mountain College the breadth of experimental art and innovative design was accompanied by liberal thinking and free lifestyle; it was the first college to integrate. Unfortunately the college closed in 1954.

John Yau read from his own poem collections, Margaret Leng Tan played John Cage's composition on her "toy piano" Francine du Plessix Gray read poems from Jonathan Williams, the founder of the "Jargon Society" oress. The readings also included some of Charles Olson's "The Maximus Poems" and Robert Creeley "Distance". Dave Sears concluded the evening with his music and lyrics recalling civil right battles against segregation. Zuccotti Park "Occupy"was often mentioned, with applause from the audience.

Strolling through the gallery after the very reading I saw a very inspiring exhibition showing the eclecticism of Black Mountain College explorations.

Kenneth Snelson's Tensegrity

Buckminster Fuller

Dave Sears

events | Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street celebrate the first month: on September 17 about 2,000 people gathered in Lower Manhattan and marched up Broadway. About 150 people spent the night at Zuccotti Park an estimated 150 stayed the night and began an encampment. The protest is against bank bailouts, corporate greed, and the power of Wall Street on the government, and the message is “We are the 99%” The non-violent movement is "gaining ground globally, with 1500 protests in 82 countries this past Saturday (October 15)."

“Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street — financial institutions generally — has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat” — seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”
“The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.”

Noam Chomsky

September 26 2011

Camminando | Fifth Avenue and Uniqlo Flagship Store

2011-10-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

After leaving Sophie Calle's "Room" I walked along Fifth Avenue, to the opening party of the Uniqlo flagship store. The spacious two-floor store populated by bright backlit fixtures, mirrors and LED signage well embrace the philosophy of the Japanese company, where fashion meets simplicity and affordability. Although with a little sense of guilt (as a décroissance believer, why I am here instead at Zuccotti Park? ) I enjoyed this celebration of consumism (at least tasteful) and below are my few visual memories :

Vernissages | Art and Memory: Sophie Calle "Room"

2011-10-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

I start my evening walkabouts crossing a dark Central Park and walking toward the Lowell Hotel, which hosts Sophie Calle’s “Room”.

The self referential title of the installation located in a "real" hotel room is almost a psychological tautology, and pregnant of significance itself. The installation, part of the festival "Crossing the Line" organized by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), consists of a hotel room staged with objects of particular significance to the artist’s life: shoes, a typewriter, a wig, handwritten letters, photographs, dresses are the personal objects associated with memories and fantasies, casually placed in the hotel room almost as objects belonging to a typical hotel guest. Notes with sequential number tells stories about Calle’s life, where art becomes a means to tell memories to others.

Sophie Calle is a remarkable storyteller and mostly a “storymaker” mixing objects and written words, writing and performances, in stories blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, public and private life. Her art is made of life stories, mainly hers. Reality does not simply happen but is often the product of her design, as in 1979 work “Suite Vénitienne”; the work consists of diaries, maps, drawings and photographs she took while following a man met at a Parisian party, all the way to Venice. The piece, traced Calle’s journey through an intricate series that she used to speculate on the man’s identity.

“Room” is room 304, The Lowell Hotel, 28 East 63rd Street, New York

from midnight of October 13 to midnight of October 16.

Vernissages, Milano, October 12 | Monica Castiglioni “New York - A Glimpse in the Puddle”

2011-10-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Reality is in our perceptions.
This statement is universally true and mentioned in many different forms and contexts, —from Buddhism, to Western and Eastern philosophy. The relativity of perception in “New York - A Glimpse in the Puddle”, is also the theme of Monica Castiglioni exhibition at Galleria Francesco Zanuso. The work presented in this exhibition shows how:

New York City has been photographed countless times by different artists with different approaches. Now, the city is depicted in a brand new way: reflected into a puddle, seen through the eyes of a passionate, istinctive, down-to-earth and ironical artist with unrelentless energy.
A tribute to New York City, a virtual trip from the past to the present and towards the future filled with feelings of transience, sadness and hope. A puddle in a street is like a temporary natural and symbolic mirror: the inconsistency of a reflection and of the primal image reflected into it which becomes abstract and recalls a different dimension away from its own.
A puddle is a way of expressing hope: the calm......after the storm. Monica Castiglioni adds: “If rain is made of tears from the earth, I like thinking that there’s always the sun shining behind the clouds and sooner or later everything will come to a new life”.

The exhibition, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti, will be on view until October 25.

Galleria Francesco Zanuso

Mondays to Fridays 3.30 p.m. to 7.30 pm 26, Corso di Porta Vigentina

Milano

Lectures NYC | Richard Aldrich on Walter De Maria

2011-10-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

We headed to DIA Chelsea last evening to hear Richard Aldrich tell us about Walter De Maria. Expecting to hear a lot about land art, earth art, and other such installations, we focused our thoughts on such works as The Lightning Field, The Broken Kilometer, etc.

However, Richard Aldrich gave us an entirely different perspective. Noting that he wasn’t all that interested in land art, he was drawn to De Maria by his sound art. His pursuit of the land artist work started from his exposure, as a DIA bookstore employee, to the CD of Ocean Music and Cricket Music.

Ocean Music begins with the sound of the ocean which is superseded by De Maria’s drumming. In contrast Cricket Music starts with the drumming and ends with live cricket sounds. Aldrich was attracted to the “feeling” creation in these CDs, a process oriented creation, as opposed to a “thing” creation.

It is the “feltness” of the experience that Aldrich favors in Walter De Maria's work. De Maria as land artist takes a long time to create the final artwork,flattening the its final understanding and fruition. His work is about time; time is his medium and how he utilizes it is its feltness. This slow experience is out of documentation, and even not available by computer viewing: computer images are flat; they can reveal only how art is seen and how it functions, not how it is felt.

camminado NYC | October 6 from Sunrise to Sunset

2011-10-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

My walking started with the sun rising on the Central Park lake

My walking day continued to Chelsea, passing by the Apple store, quite interesting and puzzling to see the "shrine" of candles, apples and sticky notes to Steve Jobs...

I arrived to Chelsea in time to see the sun setting behind the New Jersey skyline from the Hudson river.

My evening continued at the Chelsea Art Museum, opening "Black Zero" by the Italian artist Aldo Tambellini: a retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculpture, lumagrams, videograms, film, video, and television work (1960-1990).

On my way back another monochromatic enigmatic vernissage at the Art Gate Gallery, showing Peter Gregorio "The Many World Interpretations"

Events NYC | Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

"Occupy Wall Street" continues! Since September 17 thousands have been gathering in Liberty Square in a non-violent protest. Who is "Occupy Wall Street"

The leaders of this movement are the everyday people participating in the occupation. We use a tool called the "General Assembly" to facilitate open, participatory and horizontal organizing between members of the public. We welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to participate in our daily assemblies. Visit the NYC General Assembly website to learn how you can become involved, read updates/minutes, or find out how you can adopt NYCGA processes to organize your own community.

To find more info and way to participate visit "Occupy Wall Street" site.

In Memoriam | Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

2011-10-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.And yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Steve Jobs

commencement speech at Stanford University ,2005

Exhibitions | Columbia County Contemporary Art

2011-10-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

Columbia County is well renown for the mid-19th century Hudson River School, the art movement focused on the romantic interpretation and representation of the nearby landscapes. But a contemporary visitor can go beyond Olana in the timeline as Columbia County flourishes with contemporary art galleries. While in the recent years Hudson has seen the main galleries concentration, several galleries have recently opened in the town of Chatham.

My Chatham art galleries pick is the Thompson Giroux Gallery located in 57 Main Street. The gallery currently shows “Line and Color” an exhibition of works in different media, ranging from painting to drawings, sculpture and installation and including works by Emily Cheng, Jean Feinberg, Tom Hopes,David Paulson and Michael Tong.

Events | Linking Mind and Brain, lecture at CUNY Graduate Center

2011-10-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight the CUNY Graduate Center hosted a conversation between the theoretical physicist (neurophysicist) William Bialek and the philosopher of psychology, Jesse Prinz ,author of the forthcoming book The Conscious Brain.
The conversation touched several topics ranging from quantitative biology and neuroscience to philosophy, visual illusions, pseudoscience.

Bialek started the conversation introducing that the focus of theoretical physics as the mathematical analysis of nature, is often taken over by a qualitative description, able to fill the gaps left by quantitative methods. Jesse Prinz then introduced his philosophical investigations, which in opposition to Bialek methods, start from a very large scale and then narrow down to physical analysis — from abstract generalizations to concrete cases.

Can consciousness be explained as a series of brain processes? The human brain has over one-hundred billions of neurons and only a small percentage relates to consciousness. Prinz then narrowed consciousness to visual experiences, more specifically to the retinal representations occurring in the visual cortex referred to as V1, V2, V3, V4, V5 in the brain mapping. Brain injuries have also a great role in explaining consciousness.
Another interesting phenomenon in the study of consciousness is in the interpretation of ambiguous such as the Kanizsa triangles. Subliminal advertisement also is based on the connection between perception and conscious interpretation of perception.
The conversation continued with the fascinating numbers involved in the description of the human brain:100 billions of neurons reside in the human brain and 1mm thick of the folded cortex contains 100000 neurons cells each with 5000 connections (axons).The conversation ended with a mention of the pseudoscience often present in writings on neuroscience from mainstream publications such as the recent NY Times article "You Love Your iPhone. Literally".
The conversation dealt with several visual topics and I would have appreciated a more visual presentations. Nevertheless the overall themes were introduced in simple terms to be appreciated by a general audience —simplicity and clarity which are often lacking in the many neuroscience related events which are becoming increasingly popular.

Events | Won Dharma Center Opening

2011-10-02T07:19:00.000-07:00

Today the US facilities of the Won Dharma Center opened with an official ceremony and service, attended by almost a thousand of people, including pratictioners as well as
visitors; many practitioners come from this event from Korea, where Won Buddhism originated.

The center is located in the Hudson Valley, in the town of Claverack; it is only five miles from Sun Farm, and less than 100 miles from other main spiritual centers in this area, including Kripalu (Stockbridge, Ma), Tendai, Zen Mountain Monastery (Mount Tremper, NY), Tendai Buddhist Institute (Canaan, NY).
As Robin Andrews, the Claverack town supervisor mentioned in her ceremonial speech, the Claverack name is the contraction of the Dutch word for "Clover Fields" and the clover leaf has a widespread symbolism, welcoming the new center focus on peace.

The name Won Dharma Buddhism comprises the words Won meaning ‘circle’ which symbolizes the ultimate reality or our true nature. From the Won Dharma Center mission:

The Three Jewels in Buddhism are: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. These are the refuges where practitioners find true peace and freedom.
Buddha means the awakened one, the embodiment of the truth within ourselves.
Dharma is the teaching of the realized one; it is the path to restore our true self or inner light.
Sangha means the spiritual community or an assembly where like-minded people live, study and practice together for a common purpose.

To learn more visit the Won Dharma Center site

Vernissages NYC | Chelsea September 30

2011-10-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

Rico Gatson's "Three Trips Around the Block" @ Exit Art

Performance by Irvin Morazan @ Asya Geisberg

Exhibitions NYC | IBM THINK

2011-09-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

At Lincoln Center, on the corner of Broadway and W. 65th Street, you encounter a remarkable exhibition: IBM THINK

THINK celebrates IBM Centennial, exploring the potential of science and information technology to make the world work better. The exhibition includes several displays, interactive in varies forms.
A 123-foot digital wall installed at street-level digital streams real-time data from sensor placed in the area surrounding Lincoln Center; the data visualize several urban life realities, from traffic to air quality to water consumption and potential of solar energy in NYC. Following the wall you can enter the exhibition area which requires tickets, free of charge and available at the exhibition entrance.

The interior exhibition features a 12-minute film and interactive experience across 40 digital screens 7-foot tall, narrating how technology can transform andimprove our lives. The film presents images from space exploration, weather prediction and personalized medicine; it also include sequences from the 1968 documentary "Powers of Ten" by Charles and Ray Eames.

After the film the digital screens turn into touchscreen media panels, where the visitors can find a concise, yet well documented and visually clear, information (often displayed as a timeline) on the history of scientific discoveries and inventions which transformed our life. The explored themes are Seeing Understanding Mapping Acting.

The visitor exits the exhibit viewing Icon of Progress, where several (static) panel illustrates the milestone of the hundred-year IBM history from his funding to today, with all the implication of computing from credit cards to the space missions.

IBM THINK

September 23 - October 23, 2011;

information on free tickets and hours of operation can be found at www.THINKexhibit.com

Events NYC | Occupy Wall Street

2011-09-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

Since September 17 thousands have been gathering in Liberty Square in a non-violent protest.
Who is Occupy Wall Street? A concise answer from the movement website :

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.
The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly and US Day of Rage. There'll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.

For calendar of events and more information visit Occupy Wall Street

Events | Lecture by Tibetan Bon Lama Tempa Dukte at the Spencertown Academy

2011-09-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today the Spencertown Academy hosted a lecture presented by Eight Branches Healing Arts:

The Intimate Mind: Illuminating Emotion & Transformation. Public Talk & Book signing With Tibetan Bon Lama, Tempa Dukte. The Intimate Mind is our natural potential to provide space to let everything manifest in its own way. It is the practice of Open Presence through which we can experience the miracle of each moment. However, our divided mind creates obstacles that do not allow us to abide in this experience. Tempa Lama will talk about overcoming these obstacles through a practice of gentleness and awareness. Tempa Dukte Lama is an ordained Tibetan Bon lama. He is an artist, poet and writer, and the founder and spiritual director of Olmo Ling Tibetan Bon Center in Pittsburgh, PA. He trained in Menri Monastery, India under the guidance of H.H. 33rd Menri Trizin, the spiritual head of Bon. He teaches in the US and Europe on healing and other Bon practices, being with dying, meditation, and the path of compassionate beings.

Tempa Dukte Lama, a soft speaking Tibetan Monk, engaged the audience with his smile and kindness. These are the topics which I found most captivating:

Everything comes to an end.
Accept impermanence of life and being here and now.
Search for happiness finding your own personal meaning and needs.
Embrace flexibility.
There are three demons: attachment anger ignorance.
To change your life change your thinking into positive.
Express joy and happiness in what you do.
The mind is consciousness.
Be patient.

An uplifting lecture, greatly needed after the sad and unsettling event of the past week.

Vernissages NYC | Chelsea September 22

2011-09-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

After the saddening news of one the latest human cruelty and irrationality (see previous post) the show (or life) must go on. Below my visual memories of the evening:

Milton Resnick "The Elephant in the Room" at Cheim & Read

Frank Stella "Geometric Variations" at Paul Kasmin

Carsten Nicolai "Pionier" at The Pace Gallery

In Memoriam | Troy Anthony Davis

2011-09-22T11:48:00.000-07:00

A very sad day: the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis on September 21, 2011 despite serious doubts about his guilt.
For more details and action please visit here

Events NYC | Dedication of Frederick Douglass Memorial

2011-09-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." are the important words from Frederic Douglass (1818-1895), the American social reformer, writer and statesman, who after escaping from slavery became a leader of the abolitionist movement.

Douglass was celebrated with a memorial —a public art work in the traffic circle at Central Park West and 110th Street. The memorial includes a bronze portrait of a Douglass, inspired by nineteenth-century photographs, crafted by Hungarian-born sculptor Gabriel Koren and an environmental art work by Harlem-based artist Algernon Miller.

Miller's site specific artwork merges with the landscape and civil design of this major urban traffic intersection, to include granite seating and paving patterns based on traditional African-American quilt motifs, as well as a bronze perimeter fence with a wagon wheel motif. I found most compelling the bronze water wall depicting the Big Dipper constellation that guided the slaves to freedom on the “underground railroad.”

Event MIAMI | Wynwood Gallery Walk

2011-09-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

NOW Contemporary Art Gallery

Long-Bin Chen's Bookface at NOW Contemporary Art

Gallery Walks are a fact of modern life; Miami has a plethora of scheduled nights throughout a variety of artist enclaves.

Nick Gentry's paint on floppy discs at Robert Fontaine Gallery

Wynwood is an old area that has, in the past 10+ years, risen from a lonely warehouse section of Miami, to housing a vibrant and eclectic art environment. Today, it still can vacillate wildly from streets lonely with tumble weeds (speaking metaphorically, of course) to a vital neighborhood pulsating with life on Gallery night.

Michel Bickford's Intergalactic World's Fair Portal at Harold Golen Gallery

Every few months I check in with Wynwood’s offerings on second Saturday eve. Apparently “people” are back in town from their summers in the Berkshires/Hamptons/Maine, as it was a jam-packed street “mise en scene”.

Galleries are already ramping up the volume on exhibitions in prep for Fall blending into Art Basel season. During Art Basels December onslaught, Wynwood is awash with pop-up galleries in empty warehouses along with satellite fairs erected in large tents or any available space.

Dozens of gourmet food trucks gather in an empty Wynwood lot on Gallery Night

Many of Miami’s voracious collectors house their collections in warehouses open to the public year ‘round: Rubell and Margulies, plus the de la Cruz Collection just to the north in the Design District. Bernice Steinbaum from NY’s SoHo district was the first to build a stylish gallery in Wynwood at the turn of the century (this one), along with gutsy pioneer Brook Dorsch, who took over a lamp factory and crack house in a tiny, unloved back street for his Dorsch Gallery. Dorsch and Steinbaum both have sites front and center in the action, where once there was darkened streets of potholes and questionable characters. You may still find a selection of both, truth be known.

Miguel Parades, Urban Realist

The Wynwood Second Saturday takes place monthly from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. North Miami Avenue to I95 and runs from 10th to 36th Street.

Martin Carbajal's BLACK BONE series tells short stories at Waltman|Ortega Fine Art

Miguel Paredes fine Art Gallery

..and the people pepper galleries with personal visual "art"

Vernissages NYC | Chelsea September 15

2011-09-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hiroyuki Hamada @ Lori Bookstein Fine Arts

Tine Lundsfryd @ Lori Bookstein Fine Arts

John Chamberlain "Pictures" @ Steven Kasher Gallery

"Live Theory" @ Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

David Byrne "Tight Spot" @ Pace

Vincent Desiderio @ Marloborough

Social Media @ Pace

Tabaimo "Dandan" @ James Cohan Gallery

Vernissages | Richard Serra "Junction / Cycle"

2011-09-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

"Junction / Cycle" , Richard Serra's latest installation at Gagosian West is another walking meditation on space and geometry. To understand the scale see the dimension of the walkthrough sculptures:
Junction (2011): 13’ 11/2”x 75’ 1/2" x 49’ 15/16” (4 x 22.9 x 15.2 m)
Cycle (2010): 14’ 1” x 57’ 6 1/2” x 55’ 8” (4.3 x 17.5 x 17 m)
Although the heavy, not sustainable, steel seems to defy our design efforts in the search of light and flexible materials, the exhibition is truly powerful and enjoyable. Not to be missed.

Events | "Spiral Music" and Film on Buddhism at the Rubin

2011-09-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

The Rubin Museum’s series Spiral Music once again presented transcendent sounds in the playing of Max ZT on the dulcimer and Sam Sadigursky on the flute last evening (9/14/11).

Max ZT may indeed be lauded as the “Jim Hendrix of Hammered Dulcimer,” but in the playing we heard, the transcendent overshown the fiery and the improvisatory sounds led, but didn’t hammer on our psyches. This was the duo’s first collaboration, and we hope that we will more.

Following the music, the Rubin’s film series presented To Be A Buddhist Nun, the New York Premiere of "In the Shadow of Buddha". Shot by Heather Kessinger, the film took us to the seldom-seen world of Buddhist nuns in Tibet and refugees in Ladakh, a region in northernmost India.

Most of the nuns were old, wrinkled and with missing or deformed teeth, visual images seldom seen on movie screens. Although shown with prayer wheels or in services, or with prayer wheels, in their words the nuns lamented their lack of education and their second-class status in this Buddhist tradition. “A woman who has been a nun for 100 years must bow to a man who has been a monk for only one day”.

Exhibitions NYC | Manfred Mohr "Réflexions sur une esthétique programmée"

2011-09-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

"Réflexions sur une esthétique programmée" opened on Friday at bitforms. The exhibition is a retrospective of Manfred Mohr's work, on the pioneer of digital art, and borrow the title from the 1971 solo exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris “Computer Graphics - Une Esthétique Programmée”, where the artist presented works entirely calculated and drawn by a digital (rather than analog) computer. Mohr (also a jazz musician) was highly influenced by the early 1960’s theoretical writings of the German philosopher Max Bense in the notion of defining of a programmed aesthetic, parallel to the the artist's design of electronic sound. Mohr's work was generated by FORTRAN programs (written by the artist himself) and printed in ink on paper by a plotter.

The exhibition well presents Mohr's transition in media throughout the past four decades: from sketches and black and white prints to video. Mohr's rigorous approach and philosophical reasoning are remarkable, especially in the context of contemporary digital art where the ease of the medium often leads to simplistic and superficial artwork.

Manfred Mohr and his wife, the mathematician Estarose Wolfson

Event MIAMI | Miami Book Fair International

2011-09-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hongxing Ye, artist with her 2011 Book Fair poster

The largest consumer book fair in the U.S. will be rolling into downtown Miami in November for a stimulating eight days of lectures, talks, workshops and readings along with a street fair piled high with book vendors. The 2011 28^th annual fair is themed with the traditions and literature of China. Over 400 writers will grace the Miami Dade College area, reflecting Miami’s varied population with the IberoAmerican Authors Program, the Caribbean and Haitian community will be highlighting featured writers; children’s authors are represented at the fair; kids of all ages will benefit from the Comix Galaxy. There is nothing more exciting than to meander through days of thoughtful minds, careening from Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel Laureates and a generous sprinkling of up and coming local and International authors.

Consider membership in Friends of the Book Fair to take full advantage of every morsel of literary activity. (see website below)

November 13-20, 2011

Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Wolfson Campus,

Miami Book Fair info and membership details:

http://www.miamibookfair.com/membership/friends/

Florida Center for the Literary Arts:

http://www.flcenterlitarts.com/

Vernissages NYC | Chelsea September 9: Re-Forming Space

2011-09-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Space was the theme du jour at Friday night art openings in Chelsea. Revisited and re-presented in different media, scales, materials and messages.
Space intersected with time, as in the Leandro Erlich’s "Two Different Tomorrows" at Sean Kelly Gallery. The exhibition features four sculptural/architectural installations, based on elevators. This functional object/space is de-constructed, de-contextualized and re-presented in many different meaning of the most basic spatial and temporal perceptions, which reminded me of Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology studies: inside-out, up and down, past and present. Mirrors and video illusionary effects add to the depth of this exhibition which engage and amuses the cognitive state of the viewer. Not to be missed!

Less rigorous approach and more traditional presentation of "de-construction" at Derek Eller Gallery presenting Adam Marnie "Locus Rubric":

More space with the iconic Lucio Fontana's seminal "cut" on space and matter, presented at Andrea Rosen Gallery —excusez moi, but I could not understand the association with Ruby Sterling, and did not get any help as a press release...

Lucio Fontana "cuts"

Not so much on space, —and yet, another psychological citation— but nicely presented at the Winkleman Curatorial Research Lab was DOTTO LOTTO "an installation of almost 3,000 connect-the-dot puzzles on business reply mail postcards completed and returned by people in New York City and across the globe, along with an animation video that "connects" the postcards":

Vernissages NYC | Chelsea, September 8

2011-09-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

Nick Cave "Ever-After" @ Jack Shainman Gallery

Brian Jungen @Casey Kaplan

Haim Steinbach "Creature" @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Do Ho Suh "Home Within Home" @ Lehmann Maupin

Willem Oorebeek "american proof AP" @ Robert Miller Gallery

Events NYC | Fashion's Night Out

2011-09-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

A few pics, from last night stroll, from Chelsea to Soho, passing by the Meatpacking District

Vernissages NYC | Lower East Side, September 7

2011-09-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

"Early Man & Missing Landscapes" @ Charles Bank Gallery

Leah Yerpe "Illumination" @ Dacia Gallery

"Norway Now in NYC" @ .NO

design | Sun Wall at Sun Farm

2011-09-07T05:40:00.000-07:00

As home heating oil prices move inexorably upward, the search for clever use of the sun for heat moves to a higher priority. While numerous “out of the box” solutions are to be found (photovoltaic panels, hot water panels, air heating panels), one of the greatest challenges is to integrate the appliance with the architecture. Too often, rectangular aluminum panels are seen perched precariously on their corner, reclined diagonally in an attempt to find the perfect 90 degree relationship to the noon sun.

This house was designed with a large south-facing façade to welcome the sun to two aspects: the long array of windows was placed to allow the sun’s heat to enter and heat the living room as passive heating; in addition, the large timber trellis was envisioned as a mounting system for a photovoltaic array. Unfortunately, the photovoltaics had to be cut due to high cost, leaving the bare open space above the living room windows.

The current project utilizes this perfect setting in the most cost-effective manner by creating an extremely thin “greenhouse” along the southern wall. The outer skin is a transparent fiberglass fastened to a simple wood frame, with cedar trim. The sunlight penetrates the fiberglass, heating the thin air space just as a car is heated by the sun in the parking lot. The heated air, being lighter, moves upward and into the house through a vent. A second vent at the bottom of the wall brings cooler air into the heating chamber from the lower part of the room; in this way, a thermosiphon is created which will perpetually circulate the air, as long as it is heated by the sun.

We are looking forward to the cool days of fall to try it out!

camminando | Sunday Afternoon in Columbia County: "Festival of Books" and Won Dharma Center

2011-09-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon was quite dense of events in Columbia County. My walkabouts (or to be more honest, "driveabouts") started at the Festival of Books at the Spencertown Academy, the 1847 schoolhouse.
The 2011 Festival of Books is the sixth annual "celebration of books and reading for the whole community"; the program featured a series of events, from best selling author readings to an exhibition of artwork from one a presented books and even sale of vintage books —where I found a 1865 edition of Lord Byron's Poems. It gives me a great pleasure in these years of digital everything to actually touch and read a vintage book, being amazed of how the delicate thin paper with elaborate illustrations and bound in an elegant leather cover, witnessed the passing of centuries and who knows how many stories can narrate...

Artwork from Howard Saunders's “faux graphic memoir ”Axeman Who Will be 70 in the Year 2010"

The afternoon continued at the open house of the Won Dharma Center: a presentation to the Claverack community of the new facilities of the United States headquarters of Won Buddhism Sangha. Won Buddhism is based on the teaching by the Korean born founding Master Sotaesan, who reached enlightnemt in 1916: "After reading the Diamond Sutra, Sotaesan said, "Shakyamuni Buddha is truly the sage of sages."

The Won Dharma Center meditation hall and grounds also featured an art exhibition by Bruno Pasquier-Desvignes, whose work is often based on aesthetically interesting assemblages of found manmade and natural objects :

The facility is set on 465 acres of the rolling hills on the North side of Route 23, near the Claverack Red Mills, offering breathtaking views of the sun setting behind the Catskills Mountains. On the architectural critique note, the series of building —a meditation hall, an administrative building, dining hall and residencies— although inspired by sustainable design and beautifully detailed in cedar and local materials, lack a master plan. Mainly an integration with the land and overall landscape design are missing; the site as well as the Buddhist tradition, relating the human mind and body to nature, would have offer a great opportunity to create an architectural expression / integration with the landscape.

Nevertheless the Won Dharma Sangha presence is a great addition to the energy of the already locally present spiritual communities and practices.

Nature and Spirituality: the Sun Setting behind the Catskill mountains

camminando | SAN FRANCISCO and California Cool

2011-08-31T13:11:00.001-07:00

Seaweed soaked shoreline, Golden Gate National Recreation Area

I recently traded in the humidity that blankets Miami (my home town) during these endless months of deep summer, for the cool morning fog of Marin County, CA and surrounds. It was a delightful respite of differing culinary finds, temperature, nature and design. While I bathed safely in the refreshing air of the mountainous region, the Northeast suffered a quake and a hurricane, thoughtlessly named after me. I marveled at my sudden ability to dodge both quakes and hurricanes as I leapt from Miami's stormy season and avoided the watery onslaught of Irene's wrath.

Tennessee Valley Trailhead,

Golden Gate National Recreation Area/Marin Headlands,

A lovely 3.1 mile hike down to the sea

A patchwork quilt of architectural design in the streets of San Francisco on a shockingly fog-free day

The entrance gate to Chinatown in San Francisco’s Grant Street
was a gift from the Republic of China in 1969. It is on the oldest street in San Francisco.

Columbus Avenue and Grant Street:
This mural commemorates the history of North Beach's Italian settlers,
while the other side features Chinatown and some of San Francisco's early history.

The streetcar system has served San Francisco since the late 19th century. Most streetcar lines in other cities, including San Francisco, were converted to buses after World War II. Five lines survived until the 1970s, when the streetcar lines were converted to light rail during the opening of the Market Syreet Subway in 1980.

Hotel Triton in San Francisco

Outside the Mill Valley Library on a Sunday afternoon….
The Merry Widow performed amongst the Redwoods.

The Redwoods,
A poem by Joseph B. Strauss

Here, sown by the Creator's hand.

In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand:

No other clime is honored so,

No other lands their glory know.

events | Hurricane Irene visits Sun Farm

2011-08-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

Irene has finally passed and moved away. As one of the hundreds million people living in the effected areas I experienced anticipation, fear and relief —when the anticipated hurricane then transformed into tropical storm passed my dwelling and finally left.

I recorded the hurricane passage as artist view of how forces of nature transform the landscape, excerpts from video and photographs of a 24-hour period during the passing of the hurricane in Sun Farm, a land art project in the Hudson Valley can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryhTNOdHd4

Less powerful than expected yet Irene brought high wind and a relentless gush of rain which eventually resulted in flood. The vibrant summer hues turned into unsaturated, almost grey, tones. I was very impressed by how transient weather systems can transform the “permanent” landscape.

Excerpts

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Wind Power in Massachusetts

2011-08-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

Anticipating the hurricane I am organizing photos, from my summer walkabouts —which did not cover a large geographic area, although quite concentrated from a cultural standpoint.
Approaching the Mohawk trail, a quite interesting view in the Berkshires was a wind farm —seen here from Hancock Road.

And below an aerial view of the wind farm from http://www.bing.com/maps/

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

publications | SPACETECTURE

2011-08-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that the first e-book of the SPACETECTURE trilogy is finally out!

The fully illustrated version can be found at Amazon
the abridged, cheaper, version at Smashwords

SPACETECTURE is part of a trilogy of books and interactive content exploring space and its transformation in the information age.

The emphasis is on computing design applications, but the concept of space is also explored from an interdisciplinary approach ranging from geometry to psychology of perception. The content is presented in a rigorous theoretical framework and offers software independent methodologies, with the intent is to build rigorous foundations for design, from the virtual to the physical world. SPACETECTURE is targeted to both an academic and professional audience -in the field of geometry, engineering, architecture and design- and a general reader of popular science, as the series intersects several disciplines from science to art. The ambition behind SPACETECTURE is to bring the "wholistic" approach, which permeates the tradition of the ancient treatises of Palladio or Pacioli, to the digital age, in an organic fusion of theories and methodologies from different fields of knowledge.

fitness | Roya Siroospour: an interview

2011-08-16T10:49:00.001-07:00

After dragging, bouncing, hopping, lifting, bending, jumping and bopping my way through several states and three countries worth of gyms and myriad exercise classes, I am pretty clear on what circumstances make me want to work hard, and which conditions catapult me into threatening to bag the whole fitness thing and reconsider purchasing a muumuu and lifetime supply of crunchy cheesy snacks to enjoy on my new sofa. To maintain a certain level of physicality takes ramping up at various intervals in ones progress through time and space.

My "gym du jour" possesses an Instructor who manages to get me cranked up into struggling through routines that leave even the "big boys" with bulging eyeballs. The fact that there are males at all present in a fitness classroom is an anomaly; grunting through a set of rusty metal weight-lifting sets in front of other males and a smattering of nubile females is a more accepted behavior in the masculine tribe ritual. Taking direction "from a girl" is not in the Male Behavior Manual last time I looked.

Over the past several years I have been happily following a certain instructor; Roya is a bundle of kinetic energy and unending good will towards the sloth-like behavior of the average class attendee. Recently I began questioning why Roya, specifically, makes me want to work that hard; which in turn leaves me with a great sense of accomplishment and contentment. I have never been hurt by her class but have often ached with deep and prolonged muscle-usage, which, by the way, I consider a good thing.

To overcome perceived physical short-comings, which all too often are self imposed in origin, is proof that if you can push through the physical barriers, it is a short mental / emotional hop to a realization that one can override other difficulties .

I asked Roya what part of her motivational aspects were unscripted and which were purposefully calculated to control the energy in the room. I wanted her take on how this body-mind thing worked from her front-row seat.

How she gets the energy in the room rolling?

Roya: "When I come into the (exercise) room, I shut down all processes. I grew up a performer, so I know how to turn it on."

No matter what is going on in her life, physically or mentally, she makes it a point to put that aside and re-formulate the mood before entering her classroom.

" It is important to take control of the room. Who is in there also adds to the energy. There is an energy field and it has to be in a certain spot or I have to work harder to bring it up."

Roya needs the front row to be responsive and create the dynamism which will ripple into the receding rows and create a vibrance everyone feeds from and returns back to the group. If the right situation is not in place, Roya will have to work harder to bring it up. Occasionally she will feel logy energy in a class, leaving her drained from working without the aid of reciprocal exuberance. A group can merely take vitality and not give in return, or conversely share their joy and vigor. It becomes a spiraling eddy of "group think", much in the way a car can be sucked up in the "draft" of a large semi truck on the road.

"It's as if we're all rowing and someone's sipping a cocktail. I am consciously cranking up the energy" Roya explains.

In any social group, you can tell who is providing the "juice", the lower energy people plug into the other like an EV battery from a new electric car.

Roya: "I was always super energetic and loved big groups."

When she first moved to a Miami gym from Colorado she was concerned that no one would be interested in what she offered. It did not take long for her classes to fill to capacity. I was there......it happened quickly. The draw is that "super energy" that creates others to want that degree of explosive pizazz. At first I didn't think much about it, but now find myself ruminating as to what, exactly, produces the magnetic force.

Gunning is a relatively new piece of exercise equipment in our gym which resembles a spinning cycle, but using the upper body, your hands on "pedals". Gunning on the KrankCycle was created by the same person who brought us the wildly popular "Spinning", John G. Krank. Adding a personal heart monitor linked to a screen above the class area, allows each participant to track and regulate his own heartbeat. The heart monitor is attached to each class member's torso and flashed onto the screen, allowing the student to note how his body is responding. The student adjusts his energetic output to stay within various zones prescribed by the instructor as the class progresses.

Roya can see how the mind and body are disconnected in some individuals when they first enter the Gunning arena. She notes, " It can be very hard to get people into Gunning because they are so detached; it can be as simple as too much caffeine and too little hydration."

Music is an integral part of the feel good dynamic. Roya's choices? "If it works for me, it works for everyone. I move better when there's music; it makes my body move....it's part of my soul. If you can follow a rhythm, every part of your body will start to move; musical beats are cyclical, like your heartbeat or breathing. With Spinning (a repetitive movement ) you begin to feel trance-like and focus on the beat."

Yoga is about becoming one with your breath. Roya is taking this same yogi thought and bringing music into creating the "one-ness" quotient: music, the heart's rhythm and the breath become an intertwined beat. Fitness movements provide an environment to forego over-think mode allowing mind and body to meld completely into a cohesive whole; the body moving as one unit instead of a series of disparate parts threatening to to fly apart at any given moment.

I asked Roya about her experiences with one-on-one training; "I worked one woman hard for 2 months, but she never lost weight. Her background was fried food and cream, so I had to physically take her to the grocery store, walked her through, reading labels." The woman got it with that last ditch effort to educate, and lost 47 pounds. She began to make her own juices and recipes, excited by the new connection to her own destiny.

Roya has the added support of having a family on the same page with the mind-body connection; her father spent 30 years as a Yale-educated Surgeon, and is now an Holistic healer.

Roya always loved the gym, at 16 years old, the gym felt like home. She competed in gymnastics and rode horses. Today her schedule is exceptionally full of physical exercise. As well as a killer schedule at 3 Miami CRUNCH gyms, Roya manages to have plenty of energy to perform freestyle dancing. A prime example of positive energy breeding positive energy, which, happily she shares with her clients.

Roya Siroospour is Group Fitness Instructor And Personal Trainer

CRUNCH, Miami

An excerpt from the "in-progress" project MOVING MIND

by daniela bertol and irene sperber

camminando | Water Power: Lowell

2011-08-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

Not to far from the "ruins" of the water powered mill of Turners Falls, the city of Lowell offers another encounter with an industrial past, still vibrant in the post-industrial info-technological present.

Lowell is the fourth largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; it was founded in the 1820s as a manufacturing center for textiles, located along the Merrimack River, about 30 miles northwest of Boston.

Lowell is also famous in literature as birth place and burial site of Jack Kerouac who staged in the city several of his autobiographical novels.

Lowell's National Park presents some of the greatest memories of the Industrial Revolution from the nineteenth century. Several mill buildings have been rehabilitated for commercial and residential developments.

Not to be missed unusual walks and boat tours among the canals, mills reflecting in the water and smokestack towers.

camminando | Water Power: the Mohawk Trail

2011-08-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

The Mohawk Trail (Massachusetts Route 2) takes you through an harmonious human use of natural resources, which seems to coexist even in an industrial (or post industrial) land use.

The first detour from the Trail is a visit to the Natural Bridge, a spectacular natural geological formation, from Cambrian period of the Paleozoic Era site of a marble quarry until 1947. The "natural bridge" is a 550 million year old bedrock marble, carved into an arch by the force of glacial melt water over 13,000 years ago and spans over the Hudson Brook. Nathaniel Hawthorne, visited the site in 1838 and wrote about Hudson's Falls in An American Notebook "The cave makes a fresh impression on me every time I visit it ... so deep, so irregular, so gloomy, so stern." a spectacular natural geological formation, from Cambrian period of the Paleozoic Era site of a marble quarry until 1947.

The next encounter is Turners Falls, a nineteenth century industrial center. The village was founded in 1868 as a planned industrial community according to the vision of Alvah Crocker, to attract industry to the town by offering cheap hydropower that was made by the harnessing of the Connecticut River, through the construction of a dam and canal.

Industrial ruins in Turners Fall

One of the many unfortunately closed stores along the Mohawk Trail

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Central Park Summer Evening

2011-08-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

A very pleasant mid summer evening and I am planning to go the MOMA Talk to Me exhibition. I get stuck in Central Park, hundreds of people participating (and viewing) to the Jamaica Underwear Run...Ah, New York, New York!
So my evening in the park ends instead in a quiet walk through the Ramble and Lake loop, tracing my yesterday morning steps.

camminando | Framing Views of Central Park

2011-08-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

My art | walking theme du jour is framing views.
I started this morning with a walk in Central Park, shortly after the sun rose behind the Fifth Avenue tall buildings. A loop around the lake, passing through the Ramble.

Here it goes, in space-time order:

Photo credit: Daniela Bertol

Map elaborated from Google Maps

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | Time Travel to Coney Island

2011-08-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Whenever you get tired (as I often do) of the Manhattan cliché, for an easy but radically change, get on the Q train to Brooklyn, Coney Island destination. A less than one-hour subway ride takes to you a 21K New World translation of a Fellinisque adventure.

Already at the exit of the train station, at 8th Street you encounter Vito Acconci’s Wavewall: the integration of the artwork into the station architecture makes the façade bulging out.

The Luna Park greets you with the aging iconic open frame megastructures: the Wondel Wheel and the roll coaster rides. And, of course, the no longer used Parachute Jump, built for the 1939 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Park, and then moved to Coney Island for a thrill ride on cable operated parachutes.

If you don’t like (fearing motion sickness as myself) to indulge on the thrill rides, you can jog, power walk or simple stroll on a two-mile long boardwalk, parallel to the Atlantic coast, bringing you the mighty ocean breeze.
Coney Island offers you several miles of public beaches; the almost one-thousand foot Steeplechase Pier takes you to the ocean.

And back from the ocean to the land: the world famous boardwalk awaits you, with its is constellated by not-so-healthy food concessions —and several interesting pavilions providing shade and comfort stations.

And if you still have some energy left you can visit the New York Aquarium

Following my shadow on the boardwalk, at the end of the afternoon, on my way to Brighton Beach.

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

camminando | NYC, Public Art on the Hudson Waterfront

2011-08-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite routine walking itinerary in NYC is the Hudson Waterfront, from the seventies to Chelsea. The route offers comfortable walking, as completely separated from car traffic, nature sounds quite unlikely in such a urban environment —and view of the setting sun, of course. This summer this walking itinerary also offers public art, which I don't find particularly exciting, as it does not relate specifically to such a special site.

Nevertheless, public art is always inspiring and one of the greatest encounters in public places.

River Gazers by Elizabeth Allison

Wish by Noa Shay

Unusual "chairs" and "tables" by Allan and Ellen Wexler

Matthew White Seiren

Vernissages | The Axis Mundi of Ektoras Binikos

2011-08-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Spencertown Academy of Columbia County (NY) offered an unexpected encounter with the Axis Mundi of Ektoras Binikos: a compelling exhibition of video, drawings and performance from the multi-media Greek born artist, currently living in New York.

The exhibition is, emphatically yes, titled “Axis Mundi”; the opening night ended with one-hour performance where music played by the violinist Eva Ingolf intersected with light projections by Binikos.

The artist says:
“I am interested in the circuitous route but nevertheless limited paths of time.
I see the present as a distorted component of time where memories are not devalued, nor are they fully understood, and the future as a state of quivering anticipation.
I am trying to resist specific locations and determinations or full narrative, whether temporal, geographical or psychological."

Not to be missed —for more information visit the Spencertown Academy or Ektoras Binikos site.

architecture | Miami Architecture Rises Again

2011-07-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

Downtown Miami is enjoying a resurgence at long last. An over abundance of condos jammed in all at once pre-recession, threatened to drown Miami in yet another boom /bust rotation that this humidity-soaked environment is apparently famous for.

The plethora of sparkly new condos were rented out at reasonable rate awaiting the upswing which is now occurring. This sudden influx of new, young blood is kick-starting the previously unloved central location into a “whoosh” of new restaurants, shops and entertainment.

Surprisingly to many, original and interesting architecture is still front and center in this fairly young city. Miami was officially Incorporated in 1896 with a whopping population of 300. I took a stroll around recently, armed with camera, to record a soupčon of old Miami architectural design.

Alfred I. DuPont brass elevators

Alfred I. DuPont Building, completed in 1939, formerly a bank; it now holds court to special events after a series of historic renovations on it’s Depression Moderne style of architecture. Designed by the firm of Marsh and Saxelbye, the DuPont sports hand-painted cypress wood ceilings, detailed scroll work, and brass elevator doors bas relief adorned depicting native flora and fauna.

Olympia / Gusman ticket booth and marquee

Olympia Theater / Gusman Center for the Performing Arts lobby ceiling

Olympia Theater - This silent movie palace opened in 1926. The Moorish architecture, marvelous acoustics and ceiling simulating the night sky also achieved fame by becoming the first building in the South to be air-conditioned. Now known as Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, it transports the audience into experiencing old world charm in downtown Miami. It is one of the few “atmospheric” theaters designed by architect John Eberson still existing today.

Ingraham Building brass elevator logos

Another recently renovated 1926 structure, the Ingraham Building was designed by the architectural firm of Schultze & Weaver, designers of the famous Waldorf-Astoria in New York and the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles in the Chicago Style of Architecture.

Ingraham Building ceiling

Exhibitions NYC | Fabric as Form at Jack Tilton

2011-07-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

Fabric As Form, on view through the end of July, includes a quite diverse collection, including work by Scott Andresen, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, John Chamberlain, Henri Pierre Danloux, Honoré Daumier, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Albrecht Dürer, Nicolas Edelnick, Madame Gres, Zaha Hadid, David Hammons, Wenzel Hollar, Bill Jacobson, Christoffel Jegher, Titus Kaphar, Torii Kiyomasu I, India Lawrence, Issey Miyake, Barbara Morgan, Senga Nengudi, Brie Ruais, Katsukawa Shuncho, Martha Tuttle, Richard Tuttle, Rembradt van Rijn, James Welling, Charles White

Tonight the Jack Tilton Gallery also hosted a book launch for "L.A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints" including an exhibition of the artist "body prints" series and of other artworks included in the book.

performances | Elizabeth Streb - On the Fly

2011-07-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to swing a new handbag without hitting an Elizabeth Streb performance on the streets of Manhattan this month……..and I mean that in the warmest and most supportive way. Choreographer Streb is daring, energetic, and goes way beyond the image conjured up as “dance’. Her performers fly through the air with the greatest of ease….. off high platforms and scaffolding in mind-bendingly athletic performances.

Along with this past weekend’s Battery Park event, “Human Fountain”, by the Streb dancers, the previous weekend found them in Gansevoort Plaza with their new work “Ascension”, commissioned by the Whitney Museum to highlight the museum’s new site being constructed nearby at the HighLine.

“Ascension” revolved around a 20 foot rotating ladder the nine performers ran up, down and catapulted off, in a perfect execution of the strength and skill of Streb’s troupe.

Streb, Inc tours throughout the U.S. and Internationally. Streb Lab for Action Mechanics resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Fearless leader, Elizabeth Streb, was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award in 1997. She is a tour de Force in action and mind.
Make a note on your latest techno-calendar to attend Streb’s Park Avenue Armory event, “Kiss the Air” in the Armory’s huge Drill Hall, December 14th – 22, 2011. For information and ticketing go to armoryonpark.org.
Two pertinent videos to watch: ASCENSION and Elizabeth Streb discussing the performance.