My dear friend who I’ve worked with for five years, Laurie Cumbo, founder of MOCADA doing the most innovative exhibitions/events for 12 yrs, on Oct 11, announced her candidacy for City Council for the 35th district in Bklyn. At her announcement event she spoke of her agenda for the arts, for community and for diversity. She is determined to bring integrity and a new forceful vision to the political life of our city. She was incredibly impressive!
I've experienced working with her over the summer and the chain of integrity linked on her is unique and inspiringly a blessing! The kind of person that does the right thing despite when folks are watching is HUGE! ..."
"I could not agree with you more. I've known Laurie since she opened MoCada and her commitment to Brooklyn's art development and community outreach. I completely support her new journey to the City Council, and as you eloquently said, she will surely bring a much needed 'arts agenda' and an arts
At her announcement event, Ven. Ashin Indaka of the Vipassana Meditation Sangha located in this district spoke, and lead the audience in prayer, as did a number of other spiritual/religious leaders. From her powerful speech her agenda for the arts, for community and for diversity will only come second to her determination to bring integrity and a new forceful vision to the political life of our city. The Arts?! This is not politics as usual!
At Flomenhaft on Sept 13 Tom Nakashima was chosen by Kay Walking Stick to exhibit with other chosen artists like Roger Shimomura. I felt sure AAAC exhibited him in the early days, but apparently I'm wrong. I remember so well his fish swimming around & through these lovely ornamented enclosures. This painting must be around 14' wide. He paints it one panel at a time.
In this detail you can see the National Geographic Magazine pages from the collapse of the World Trade Center issue. These are attached to each panel and the painting is done over them. Here you can see the firemen from one of the illustrated pages.
This is Tom. Its been too long. Clearly a heroic Asian American artist. This from an article found on Google: M.F.A., University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana 1967. Currently Eminent Scholar in Art at Augusta State University “Tom Nakashima is an American of Japanese and Canadian heritage. He is the nephew of famed furniture maker George Nakashima. Nakashima's relatives were sent to the internment camps during WWII, but Tom and his family were spared because his father was a physician attached to the U.S. Army. He is satisfied with being "neither Japanese nor American, " stating, " That's what my work is about".
Have you been to the new home of NYU a/p/a studies dept? Its called the 7-8 Washington Mews. The blue door. This is what the "Mews" actually looks like. Its the street, or alley way just above the Washington Square Park off Fifth Ave. A NYC street like no other.
Liquid Borders/Empty Promises exhibition at Ise Cultural Foundation Sept 7-Oct 26 featured a number of artists from Hong Kong, in this case Annysa Ng. The theme is the Hong Kong-China border, its limits and its hidden agenda, Annysa's piece caught my eye. Picking up on reversing the idea of living till one dies, she has gathered articles from a fictional life, from birth to death, even including fictional maps of a journey to Hades from Classical myths and one from China.
Bing Lee is also featured in Liquid Borders/Empty Promises, Sept 7-Oct 26. His installation is on the wall.
Also on Sept 7 evening at Judson Church was a film screening sponsored by NRN - Native Resistance Network, an indigenous group related to OWS - Occupy Wall Street. Broken Rainbow can be seen in 7 parts on the website http://blackmesais.org/ This film made it clear, genocide is taking place in the US. It stuns me to see prominent Senator Goldwater and others authorizing re-location of Hopi and Navaho people when they clearly know this is genocide. The charade perpetrated is hardy a deception, so obvious is this crime. And it is continuing.
After the screening one of the speakers was Frankie Delgada who spoke about the struggle in Puerto Rico over the proposed gas line that will cut through the island. Eminent Domain may be used to enforce relocation.
AAAC began its long awaited Flea Market! At 47 Canal St in front of Frank's Video Repair shop a table or two is set up and items that have been collected for many years are offered to anyone and everyone who passes by. This is great fun to bargain with those looking for just the right thing - a gold mine of miscellany, from fabrics, scarves & dance costumes, to tools, gallery equipment, slide projectors and slide storage cabinets. Larger items like office tables, wall board heaters, and bicycles are available and on Craigs List.
Meeting tourists from Germany and Poland. If you want to stop by call/email first, not there on a regular time.
Hee Jung Kim installation in the Firehouse in Newark Ironbound Oct 4. Mounted by Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center as part of the Newark Arts Council 11th Annual Open Doors '12.
Willie Cole Chandalier installation composed of plastic water bottles. At the Firehouse on Prospect St in Newark, Exhibition entitled "Ironbound Unbound#3" and mounted by Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center as part of the Newark Arts Council 11th Annual Open Doors '12.
Yoland Skeete and Hal Laessig -the engine of Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, who transformed the Firehouse and mounted this exhibition with substantial catalogue in amazingly short time - with help from supporters like the surprised woman here. Sumei is located nearby in the Button Factory where another sister exhibition is installed and many art events planned for October. http://www.sumei.org/
Yoland Skeete and Hal Laessig -the engine of Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, who transformed The Firehouse looks like a gallery, in amazingly short time it was totally transformed by Hal Laessig who together with Yoland Skeete, deserves credit for all the success and stimulus they bring to this part of Newark. http://www.sumei.org/
On exhibition in the Firehouse is two of Vik Muniz monumental photographic portraits called "Pictures of garbage". Created in collaboration with the garbage pickers of Jardim Gramacho, a 321 acre open air dump near Rio in Brazil. Vik solo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro drew one of the largest attendance records. In the photo you can see small tires and drums, making this figure the length of two trailer trucks.
From the rear of the gallery can be seen the sculptures of Gary De Benedetto. They are transformed mechanisms that are interactive creating unique sounds.
The Asian American Arts Centre was founded in 1974 in New York to address the distinctive concerns of Asian Americans in the United States. The Arts Centre utilizes performances, exhibitions and public education to present and interpret the ongoing synthesis of contemporary American and Asian art forms.