summertime | In, Out & About: Hudson Valley

A solarized view of the Taconic Parkway, the infrastructure of my weekend getaways

Summer is slowly, yet relentlessly, fading away and I am posting a few of the visual memories of the places and events I have been intersecting with. Photography has become a storytelling medium and the narrative is increasingly expanded to include some vertical panoramas where backbending aids in framing the composition.

Framed views of an opening at John Davis Gallery in Hudson

Walking while interacting with dancers in the Fields of Art Omi

Suspended whales in the industrial archaeology of Basilica Industria, reminiscent of the Hudson past

A view of the Huson river with the Catskill Mountains background

Warren Street, Hudson

Events | Hudson Winterwalk

Saturday December 7 marked the 17^th Winterwalk; this annual event, produced and organized by the Hudson Opera House, presented several public arts events. All the events were free and engaged the local community along Warren Street\ —\one on the main antique centers in the USA. Winterwalk events run from 5-8pm on the first Saturday of December and include several street art performances, from mines to fire eaters; icons of the Christmas celebration, such as reindeer and alpacas, also make an appearance in the street. The evening ends with firework on the Hudson river background.

Aerial silks with Robin Lynch at the Hudson Opera House

 Memories from the 2007 Winterwalk

Events | Hudson, Artswalk

Every fall,  it's Artswalk time - a time to see some fresh art ideas on the streets and galleries of Hudson, New York.

Below - installation "And Then and Now: New Work from the Cave" by Gillian Jagger at the Carriage House, John Davis Gallery

Vernissages | Hudson, Sarah Peters @ John Davis Gallery

John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY, is presenting a solo exhibition of sculpture and drawings by Sarah Peters.  It is a show for winter—-muted colors and serious postures.
The black-penned, white papered portraits emanate sternness, zealousness, serious-mindedness.  Drawn from characters in American spiritual movements and separatist sects from colonial days to the 20th century, the images cause us to reflect on the paths that have been followed in bringing us to the present.     Meanwhile, the bronze sculptures present a complementary group.  Principally also black, and many with angled torsos and distorted limbs, these works cause us to ponder the artist’s interpretation of a work’s trajectory from figurative sculpture to a contemporary remaking.

Elizabeth Davis

Exhibitions | Hudson: Chris Gallagher at Galerie Gris

Galerie Gris in Hudson, NY, is exhibiting paintings by Chris Gallagher. This exhibition of oil paintings reflects the artist’s longtime interest in invisible information and energy endlessly suspended in the circulation of the cosmos and the scientific observation of distant phenomena. The parallel linear bands of luminous color pulsate from edge to edge on the canvas and register the hand of the artist through the slight imperfections in the brushwork. The bands run vertically, horizontally or diagonally, in some cases possessing a gentle curve. They are built with multiple layers of paint that achieve glowing, vibrating streams that suggest the dizzying blur of technological information.  The striations are densely packed and seem to be part of a boundless field suggesting expansion beyond the edges of the canvas--thereby creating an ongoing intuitive response and capturing something much larger than the canvas itself or, perhaps, something infinitely smaller. The exhibition also includes “Tondos”, circular format paintings that reinforce the astronomical associations and create the illusion of buoyant, slowly rotating spheres.

Elizabeth Davis

Upcoming | Marina Abramovic Institute in Hudson: Ephemeral Becomes Permanent

Yesterday in Hudson (NY) Marina Abramovic introduced plans for the Marina Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art (MAI). The presentation occurred in the same former Community Tennis Building, which will be hosting MAI: a pretending neoclassical run-down building1from 1929, with 20,000 square feet of space The Community Tennis Building is located in Columbia Street, one block from Warren Street, Hudson main street which has undergone a revitalization in the past two decades with the ubiquitous antique dealers shops and art galleries. There is no set opening date for  MAI but, from Marina Abramovic presentation the Institute sounds definitely innovative  and hopefully will include also projects by the many artists populated the Hudson Valley, which witnessed the birth one of the first American art movements, the Hudson River School of Painting. 

The renovated building will be filled with chambers to induce several participatory experiences in the visitors, well beyond the typical superficial browsing which is often the main experience of art galleries and museum goers. The visitors will have to sign a contract before entering MAI, stating that their visit will last at least six hours. Several level of engagements will be offered, in the attempt to blur the line between artist performers and viewing audience, which will wear a lab coat, as a participant to what the artist defines as the "Abramovic method." One chamber will be filled with magnets and crystals to awaken and channel individual energy. Another visitor experience will be in the "durational chair", designed by the artist; each chair will be manouvred by an attendant who will wheel tired visitors to sleeping area. 

Abramovic announced that before starting to implement her vision she has to raise $15 million need for the renovation. The building renovation and retrofitting is designed by the Dutch archistar Rem Koolhaas of OMA and, at least from the model on view at the presentation (no walkthrough or other digital interactive visualization was presented) does not look dynamic and intriguing as the vision of Abramovic. Very static rationalist interior elevations do not seem to take in account the time based experience which characterizes a fluid art form as performance.

At the end of the presentation there was a screening, quite beautiful, of one of her first performances in the building, a kind of initiation in the relationship between the artist and the space she chose to give permanence to the ephemerality of performance art.

Down by the Water | Music and Sunset by the Hudson River

A few visual memories from last night at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park. with stunning views of the sunset, while listening to music from live performances at the Hudson.Water.Music festival.