westbeth

The idea of Free Variation comes from the philosopher, Edmund Husserl, for whom it was a method for finding the essence of things. He posited that by imagining a given thing appearing in different settings, variations will share qualitative traits that overlap. These overlapping areas contain both the common essence as well as what is indispensable to their individual being. No matter how much their materials, subject, or expressive modality differ, the free variations exhibit a structure of conjoint essences.

Three of the artists (Casey, Craig, and Mohassel) are philosophers as well as painters. The fourth, Maile trained as a landscape architect.

Their work is about the unfolding of experience – the natural, the abstract, the imagined and the real – and the meaningful intentional act of representation taken as active responses. In the spirit of allegresse that lights up images which hold thought at their origin, these artists are thinking through what the entire act of creation entails and signifies, tracing out even the most momentary variations of experiencing the world.

About the artists:

Christina Maile

My family came from Borneo and Trinidad, making my childhood filled with stories about the woman with no face, heedless nature, and the dangers awaiting the living and dead. These stories encouraged me to detect the complex narrative structures which create what everything we see, hidden underneath like roots or veins. Painting for me is a physical thinking process to find the unexpected dialogue between things. This exhibit is expresses received images of mother and child, the lexicon of landscape, and the damage/salvage of Sandy. I would like to dedicate this exhibit to Dan Rice, a second generation Abrstract Expressionist and an extraordinary teacher. I want to thank the Pollock Krasner Foundation and the Joan Mitchell Foundation for their support. Website: christinamaile.com

Parviz Mohassel

I am a painter, an architect and a philosopher. The painted lines and surfaces for me are findings, which are left behind in the process of painting as if they were at a distance, holding on. I am not painting for re-arrangement, re-orientation or composition. Rather I am activating conditions for variations to surface on a canvas. The invisible lurks behind every gestural brushstroke. If the invisible fades in the process, it persists, in variations taking shape on the canvas. Painting is an experience of activated horizonal possibilities, holding on to both the visible and invisible. Website: parvizmohassel.com

Ed Casey

Ed Casey’s works in this show constitute a set of free variations on landscape vistas. They include seascapes seen near Stonington, Maine, where he has painted in the company of Christina Maile and Parviz Mohassel and others during the past two decades. Reversing the usual course of late modern art, their evolution is from mainly abstract motifs to increasingly representational treatments. Casey’s preferred media are acrylic and watercolor, whose fast-drying water base requires rapid execution. He likes to think of his work as offering quick glances into the land and sea worlds: instantaneous takes on whatever catches his eye in those worlds. Website: edwardscasey.com

Megan Craig

Megan Craig’s work in this show relates to gravity and the variable weights of things. Some of the paintings deal with possible ways in which something withstands a pressure, rises, falls, floats, or buckles. Some have to do with ideas about digging or weeding – ways of moving through clutter and getting closer to the ground. Others depict ways of caring for abandoned things – cradling them, holding them up, and giving them a place to stand. Recently Craig has been thinking about painting as a way of learning how to perform seemingly mundane, elemental or automatic actions: how to breathe, how to grow, how to grip, how to eat, how to fall. Website: megancraig.com

WESTFEST 2013 Site Specific Dance Festival PHOTOS

Christina — Sat, 11 May 2013 01:12:48 +0000

Annette Homann INCLINE / DECLINE photo Sasha Santiago

Dancers, choreographers, musicians perform all over Westbeth on April 28, 2013. More photos HERE

Dancers Jamie Di Mare, Heather Lee, and Tanja Meding in BEAUTY by Sally Gross

Dancers Jamie Di Mare, Heather Lee, and Tanja Meding in BEAUTY by Sally Gross

Dancers Allison Beler, Sean Hatch, Rachel Rizzuto, Cassie Bednall, Natalie Canizares, Dia Dearstyne, Lee Duveneck, Lauren Ritzi, Calvin Tsang, Rachel Watson and cellists Dan Barrett and Tish Edens perform in IDENTIFIERS, a collaboration between choreographer Mari Meade Montoya and composer Charles Coleman

Dancers Allison Beler, Sean Hatch, Rachel Rizzuto, Cassie Bednall, Natalie Canizares, Dia Dearstyne, Lee Duveneck, Lauren Ritzi, Calvin Tsang, Rachel Watson and cellists Dan Barrett and Tish Edens perform in IDENTIFIERS a collaboration between choreographer Mari Meade Montoya and composer Charles Coleman. Photo Christina Maile

ARTE BLANCHE choreographed and performed by Shandoah Goldman, paper dress by Asa Thornton

Audience members become part of the show in ARTE BLANCHE

Performers Jessica Lewis, Ashley Thaxton, and Isabel Maria Mares in AN ARGUMENT FOR FLOWERS by Jessica Lewis

Giorgia Bovo, Erin Jennings, Faith Kimberling, and Kristen Klein AND players etg (Organ), Joe Gallant (Bass), Annette Homann (Violin), Mark Kirby (Drums), and Jack DeSalvo (Guitar) perform INCLINE/ DECLINE a collaboration between choreographer Caron Eule and composer Joe Gallant, costumes by Arturo Vera

Audience on staircase watching FLYING TIME

Rebecca Hite, Erica Moshman, Crystal Nilsson, Stephanie Simpson, and Stephen Ursprung in FLYING TIME, a collaboration between composer Jill Jaffe and choreographer Stephen Ursprung and Reject Dance Theatre

Gyrchel Moore and Nadia Tykulsker in BATHTIME STUDIES by EmmaGrace Skove-Epes

Choreographer/performer Amy Miller in THE ROAD TO SAMADHI a collaboration with composer/engineer Daniel Palkowski

Amy Blumberg, Brendan Drake, Flannery Houston, Hayley Muth, and Jackie Nowicki in LAST BITCH STANDING by Brendan Drake

Carol Nolte and Riley in BALL choreography by Carol Nolte. Photo by Christina Maile

Carol Nolte and Megan Sipe co-producers of WESTFEST 2013 Site Specific Dance Festival

VOLUNTEER Tour guides George Cominskie, Kiriki Metzo, Ze’eva Cohen, Halina Warren, Sandra Kingsbury, Magda Dajani, and Kate Walter prepare for the show

Except where indicated, all photography by Sasha Santiago www.sashasantiago.com

Westbeth Gallery: FLAMEPROOF June 8 – June 22, 2013

Christina — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:29:22 +0000

OPENING RECEPTION Saturday June 8th 5 pm – 7 pm
Flameproof II at Westbeth Gallery is a selection of works by recent Pratt BFA Painting and Drawing graduates burned out of their studios last February.

These student have since created works that shout, whisper and stop you in your tracks. This loss reverberated through the Pratt community and was met with indispensable generosity, support and patronage from many donors and sponsors. We thank the Westbeth Gallery for their immediate offering to host this Exhibition with in weeks of the event. Westbeth Gallery’s inspired support reinvigorated the students ambition to move on. This exhibition features the products of that strength, community spirit and aspiration displayed by these young artists with flameproof creativity.

A bond of solidarity in this shared experience has energized ambition and mutual support in them. All of these artists were effected by the loss and have been refocused in their resolve to move forward. This sponsorship by Westbeth Gallery in its long tradition supporting the arts has made this exhibition possible and particularly poignant.

BOBBY HARDEN and STEPHEN HALL Latest videos

Christina — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:07:18 +0000

Bobby Harden video Stephen Hall video

Video of dance performance from WestFest 2012

Christina — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:51:53 +0000
Site Specific dance performance in Westbeth basement. Click here for info on WESTFEST 2013

VICKI BLANKENSHIP in new short play at Manhattan Repetory Theater opening May 14th . Click here.

Christina — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 01:12:04 +0000

I’m appearing with Martine Moore in Mathilde Dratwa’s insightful, warm and very funny new one-act play “Escape from Garden Grove.” Manhattan Repertory Theatre is producing Spring One Act Play Competition 2013, which will culminate in a semi-final and a final productions where a winner will be announced. I would love for all of you to come if you can, but I believe that theater should be guilt free — for a change. So come if you can. If you saw the one night performance in Williamsburg in February, not much will have changed.

Manhattan Repertory Theatre, 303 West 42 Street. Tickets are $20 each. The theater only holds 47 people, so . . . . You can reserve tickets at MRTRESERVE@GMAIL.COM then pay when you arrive.

Performances

Tuesday, May 14, 9:00pm

Wednesday, May 15, 9:00pm

Thursday, May 16, 9:00pm

Friday, May 17, 9:00pm

Saturday, May 18, 9:00pm

Semi-finals: Tuesday, May 28 at either 6:30 or 9:00pm

Finals: Friday, May 31 at both 6:30 and 9:00pm

JACK DOWLING ink drawing in a new show called Paul Theck and his Circle 1950′s at the Leslie and Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, NYC opening April 12 – July 7. Click here for more info.

Christina — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:05:19 +0000

I have an ink drawing, “ Tony and Norman” in this exhibit of the Cooper Union group of scoundrels. Paul died a few years ago and is just now receiving his due in this country. In Europe he has been a star for some years.

It is a single ink drawing Titled “Tony and Norman” which was executed in Italy about 1960 when Joseph Raffelli and Peer Hujar visited me.

ILSA GILBERT poet of Bleecker St Birthday Celebration April 28, 3pm at St Marks in the Bowery, NYC

Christina — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:58:55 +0000

Produced by the Downtown Chamber and Opera Players, the celebratory program includes opera excerpts from One Night Together, The Bundle Man and more, Art Songs, and choreography by Sasha Spielvogel, choreographer of Labyrinth Dance Theater.

April 27 is Ilse Gilbert’s 80th birthday!