Shark Week Wrap Up: lessons learned

My delay in blogging about Shark Week is due to the fact that I'm already in mourning....missing my favorite week of the year...overcome by the fact that I have to wait over 350 days until the next shark week. It's too much to handle.

But today is finally the day to wrap it all up. In addition to reconfirming my absolute fear of Great Whites, I learned the following:

1. Shark Week provides excellent marketing opportunities.

2. Really, I should be more scared of the Bull Shark.

3. Shark Week has the most loyal fans.

4. Shark Week exists in the Art World (Ladyshark Week, that is).

5. In fact, here's a roundup of Shark-related Art!

TAGS: sharks

Rob Carter AWARD!

I am THRILLED to present the Rob Carter AWARD for Excellence in Packing & Packaging Design to Chuka for the box shown above.




Awesome job. It is a happy, happy day here at Mixed Greens.

TAGS: award

Culture Craver calls Jeila Gueramian's installation a "must see"

Just in time for Shark Week, Culture Craver draws attention to Jeila Gueramian's underwater scene in the Mixed Greens' windows. Check it out now! On view at 531 West 26th Street (viewable from the street) through August 16th!

TAGS: sharks / windows

Sanam Enayati

Our current group show presents "what's going on" within the realms of contemporary drawing. Some of the artists such as Sanam Enayati’s work refers to a more conceptual definition of drawing. Sanam recently received her MFA from School of Visual Arts in 2011 after studying fashion design in Italy. Her background in apparel comes through in her use of textiles and hand crocheted elements of her current work. The four pieces being exhibited at Mixed Greens include a video performance, an installation of the performance space and tools, and paintings of memories from the performance. Perhaps one can think of her performance as an act of drawing, process, and research that mediates future work while being able to stand alone as a single piece.


TAGS:

Reading this Tuesday

Food and art go together naturally. So CSA's and art seem to be a perfect fit.

Excellent interview with Dexter Wimberley, one of the curators of Crossing the Line (which is on view at Mixed Greens through August 16th!).

Of Note: Mary Temple's installation at the Mickey Leland Federal Building in Houston, TX is scheduled to be installed in October!

Ohh jeez. How does this happen accidentally?


And in honor of Shark Week (and how ridiculous it can be....Voodoo Shark, anyone??):



TAGS: sharks

Heeseop Yoon

Heeseop Yoon who is a part of our current exhibit Crossing the Line was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. She is known for her larger than life line drawing installations. Yoon’s concentrated freehand drawings record cluttered spaces, and comment most directly on the (in)accuracy of perception.

Yoon writes, "My work deals with memory and perception within cluttered spaces. I begin by photographing interiors such as basements, workshops, and storage spaces, places where everything is jumbled and time becomes ambiguous without the presence of people. From these photographs I construct a view and then I draw freehand without erasing. As I correct "mistakes" the work results in double or multiple lines, which reflect how my perception has changed over time and makes me question my initial perception. Paradoxically, greater concentration and more lines make the drawn objects less clear. The more I see, the less I believe in the accuracy or reality of the images I draw."

Simple, small items like knickknacks or keys, those things which clutter our daily lives are here depicted on a grandiose scale with care and precision. On one level perhaps Yoon is making the statement that our collection of objects and material goods can be helpful to our lives or just as chaotic and overwhelming as her incredible wall sized representations.

Heeseop Yoon – Crossing the Line from Mixed Greens on Vimeo.

--Mixed Greens intern, Callie Herod

TAGS: crossingtheline

Karen Finley's

Freight+Volume current group show, The Decline And Fall Of The Art World, Part 1: The One-Percenters, is interactive and makes a point of relieving issues with today's art world. Karen Finley's piece "The Complaint Booth" allows visitors to share their personal complaints with the art world. Though the responses varied some trending complaints were...
-- art not being accessible for everyone
-- interactive art is very relevant yet very rare.
-- art being exhibited only because it is "art", loss of craft and integrity.

To add to the debates and complaints, the show is up until August 17th just two streets away from us!
And if you too are frustrated by the lack of interactive art around come to Murmurs & Incantations an immersive theater piece Mixed Greens is hosting August 21st and 22nd!


TAGS:

Visit from Cooper Union

Larry Ossei-Mensah gives a tour of Crossing the Line for Cooper Union students. #crossingtheline #mgsummershow

TAGS: crossingtheline / exhibition

Oasa DuVerney

Since Oasa DuVerney received her MFA from Hunter College in 2011 her work has primarily consisted of video performance as well as graphite drawings on paper. Her piece, Fidel 638 Times is currently installed in our group show: Crossing the Line, Contemporary Drawing and Artistic Processes. The piece is a series of 638 cropped portraits, each graphite on paper, and all done from a single photograph of Castro. Oasa found this image from an article about the many unsuccessful assassination attempts the US made against Castro.
Throughout her work, Oasa means to portray societies collective aggression often through the display of consumerist culture. With this piece she was interested in the large number of failed assassination attempts paired with the obsessive amount of drawings.


TAGS: crossingtheline

Firelei Báez

Firelei Báez is included in our summer exhibit Crossing the Line. She is of Haitian-Dominican descent, and her artwork involves large-scale, intricate works on paper indebted to a convergence of interests in anthropology, science fiction, black female subjectivity, and “women's work.” Her art explores the humor and fantasy involved in self-making within diasporic societies.

Her work questions the formation of cultural identities and fleshes out tangled concepts about race. Her characters which she often re-works and inserts as silhouettes onto the pages of books, lack skin tones. Instead, the figures are created from flowers, flowing vines, and ornate decorations. They firmly reject definition in terms of skin color or physical traits.

She writes, "As more people become multiracial, skin tone is no longer a sufficient signifier. Growing media presence and more commonplace interactions via technology in our daily lives reduce each individual to a small part of a larger demographic. I use symbolically loaded scenarios to metaphorically illustrate the multiplicities and hypocrisies that make up the current discussion about race and class within popular culture".

Instead of specific bodies, faces, or characteristics, Báez prefers depicting people as interweaving, multiple patterns that are as unique and dynamic as humans themselves.

Watch the video here:

Firelei Báez – Crossing the Line from Mixed Greens on Vimeo.

--Mixed Greens intern, Callie Herod

TAGS: crossingtheline

Ruby & Ada

Be sure to check out Ruby Amanze's alter ego, Ada the Alien when you visit our current exhibition Crossing the Line: Contemporary Drawing and Artistic Process. Amanze is a Brooklyn-based artist of Nigerian birth and British upbringing who has found empowerment in the authenticity of the hybrid.

She writes, "For expatriates, straddling multiple cultural identities often presents a challenge...To safely navigate this sensory collision of familiar yet strange, spaces, memories, and cultures, I have invented an alter ego named Ada the Alien. These drawings are a reflection of her layered experiences; living somewhere between reality and fantasy".

Her mixed media drawings represent the fractured experiences of those who have encountered the consequences of displacement. But Amanze embraces this discomfort and uses it within her work. She projects herself into each piece, using her fantastical drawings to explore her own identity. At their core, Amanze creates art about change whether it be the change that accompanies moving, the change of self as a result of leaving one place behind, or the small changes that shape day to day existence.

Watch her video here:

Ruby Amanze – Crossing the Line from Mixed Greens on Vimeo.

--Mixed Greens intern, Callie Herod

#crossingtheline
#mgsummershow

TAGS: crossingtheline / exhibition

Rediscovered!

It is that time of year again, inventory week! While you might think all of that re-recording is tedious, we discovered some stored treasures like Mary Temple's 1 Million Ellipses. where she used neon and white pens to create 1 million circles on each drawing.

Check out her website to see her more current work and come to Mixed Greens to see the light installation hanging above our desk.



TAGS:

Nearing Shark Week

In anticipation of SHARK WEEK.

TAGS: sharks

Reading/Listening/Looking: Stuff for Tuesday

Lee Stoetzel is all over the internet today. Check out postings about his sculpture here (@Trendhunter) and here (@BeautifulDecay).

Larry Ossei-Mensah, one of the curators of our current exhibition Crossing the Line will be on the radio today. Listen to him here, at 5pm, at BBOX Radio!

And if you're in Los Angeles, mark your calendars for the opening of Sweat Baby Sweat (featuring work by our very own Mark Mulroney) hosted by GILDAR Gallery in their summer Pop Up space at 7466 Beverly Blvd #7 Los Angeles, CA 90036. Opens July 21st.

TAGS: events / exhibitions / mulroney

Upstate visit to Art Omi

Heather and Steven were upstate today to visit Kim Beck at Art Omi!

TAGS: beck / fieldtrip