Category Archives: Past Events

WESTSIDE EXPOSURE
Whitney Staff Art Show
Summer 2017

Graphic by Justin Romeo

Graphic by Justin Romeo

Westside Exposure: Whitney Staff Art Show 2017

From its origins in Greenwich Village in 1914 to its relocation to the Meatpacking District in 2015, the Whitney Museum of American Art has remained devoted to living artists at critical moments in their careers. Many of the Museum’s staff members, who provide crucial support to the development, implementation, and management of exhibitions, programs, and publications, are artists themselves. For the second time in its history, the Whitney’s Staff Art Show will be held in a public space, offering staff an opportunity to share their work with a broad audience and deepen connections with the Westside community. This exhibition will include over 70 works in a wide range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, printmaking, collage, and video, reflecting the diversity of artistic practice among the Whitney’s talented staff.

Opening Reception Video
Video credit:
Website: http://nycgalleryopenings.com

Curators: Michelle Donnelly and Melinda Lang

Opening Reception: June 22, 6–8PM

Exhibition Dates: June 23 – July 13

Gallery Hours: Wednesdays – Sundays, 1–6PM

Panel Discussion: July 13 (closing date), 6:30PM

Artists:

Jehad Abu Hamda
Karly Anderson
David Armacost
James Bartolacci
Phoebe Berglund
Jeff Bergstrom
Caitlin Bermingham
Teo Blake
Richard Bloes
Marissa Bluestone
Ali Bono
Holly Brennan
Tom Burckhardt
Lydia Cardenas
Natalee Cayton
Jaqueline Cedar
Heather Cox
James Cullinane
Luis DeAndre
Sarah Dinkelacker
Sam Dollenmayer
John Donovan
Kasim Earl
Reid Farrington
Kyle Freeman
Jesse Gelaznik
Manuela Gonzalez
Sophie Grant
Dina Helal
Leslie Hodge
Chris Ketchie
Yon Mi Kim
Morgan King
Elizabeth Knowlton
Queena Ko
Pamela Koehler
Franky Kong
Tom Kotik
Christopher Lesnewski
Ali Lewis
Kelley Loftus
Rob Lomblad
Deborah Lutz
Doug Madill
David Miller
Lorryn Moore
Brancey Mora
Victor Moscoso
Anthony Naimoli
Vishal Narang
Shóna Neary
Katy Newton
William Norton
Natalie Ochoa
Rose O’Neill-Suspitsyna
Anibal Padrino
Laura Pfeffer
Jason Phillips
Eliza Proctor
Greg Reynolds
Kristin Roeder
Justin Romeo
Joshua Rosenblatt
Dyeemah Simmons
Mark Steigelman
Greg Stone
Paula Stuttman
Eric Vermilion
Butcher Walsh
Jenyu Wang
Nathaniel Whitfield
George Wisegarver
Alex Zak
Nicolette Zorn

Judy Lawne Photographs:
My 7 years at Westbeth

JUDY LAWNE JOHN TURN VERSION

Westbeth and the West Village is a photographer’s paradise. These photos are a summary of my life here and includes photos of festivals, ordinary life, portraits of the staff and views from my apartment window.

I wish living here happened earlier in my photo life 40 years , but I am very lucky to live here

Westbeth Balcony and Cloud

Westbeth Balcony and Cloud

Blue Red Empire State Building

Blue Red Empire State Building

Daytime Window

Daytime Window

Bobby Harden and Val Ghent at Westbeth Music Festival

Bobby Harden and Val Ghent at Westbeth Music Festival

Hallway Shadows

Hallway Shadows

Victor and Rcke

Victor and Rcke

Judy lawne A BRIEF STORY OF
40 YEARS AS FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER.

I’m a native New Yorker. From the time I started in photography which was the mid 70s I worked and also lived both New York and S. California. I’m now permanently based in New York and also have had shows of my work in both New York & S. California.

In the mid 70’s I was in California and I started by assisting Albert Watson.
Shared O.Winston Links studio and he taught me black and white printing. I started being a bi-coastal photographer.

AT FIRST MY WORK was a Contributing photographer for Ladies Home Journal & Good Housekeeping. Fashion for L’OFFICIAL U.S.A. Then annual reports, and portraiture. Authors Portraits For their novels and in California Portraits of celebrities and talent in NY and California for William Morris AGENCY

Photographed the only ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN for Rockefeller Center. Mid 90s my client at Louis Vuitton asked me to document their Centennial at the Mercer Hotel in NY … that was my first event documentation and opened a new world of event photography, both NY & Calif. From LINCOLN CENTER NY, MUSEUMS, FRAGRANCE AWARDS and other MAJOR NY EVENTS to the MUSIC CENTER IN L.A. THE SHRINE, ACADEMY AWARDS & SAG AWARDS

In NY 9/11/01 and the Salvation Army asked if I photo day 2 -5 they would leave credentials for me to go to GROUND ZERO. can only pray it’ll never happen again.

MY PERSONAL WORK is nature from the beaches along the Calif. Coast TREES, OCEAN, MOUNTAINS, to Martha’s Vineyard and along the West Side of New York.

Modern Dance companies BALLET HISPANICO N.Y & LULU WASHINGTON L.A. is my photo passion too. Do miss my darkroom but now shooting digital and my computer is the new darkroom. Teaching photography on and off for years to young people after school and mentally challenged people also at risk people young & old.

It’s very rewarding and it feels that I learn more from them than I give.

Photography is a way of life and a great passion … The photograph “SHOWS A MOMENT OF TIME NO OTHER MEDIUM CAN CAPTURE”.

Yes, I’m very fortunate to have followed my passion and dreams regardless of the roller coaster ride the freelance world can produce. It’s worth it.

Sandra Caplan: Paintings Part Two

SANDRA CAPLAN Adriatic, 40'X32_, O_L, sandra caplan 2014

My past and recent work explores the possibilities of the still life, that is, the same and similar subjects, flowers, fruit and vegetables, photos, objects, placed on vividly colored and patterned fabrics. The still life is often set against an open sea view or landscape, near the shade of a palm or placed on a table top within the studio. An accent of a drape or architectural reference is incorporated at times, referring back to visual details found in favorite paintings or to the memory of a place. There is this reference to a landscape or city view depending on where the work originated.
These compositions offer a complex formality that is the culmination of acute observation, heightened by a painterly approach and highly developed color sense.

For further information please refer to the website: www.sandracaplan.com
or contact the artist at sandrray@gmail.com

Robert Bunkin
The Sculpture Series

Mbembe Head

Membe Head II, Flashe on canvas, 26 x 30 inches, 2015

Robert Bunkin is a figurative painter who has shown in galleries and museums in New York, nationally, and Italy.

He earned his BS in Art from the CUNY BA/BS Program, during which he studied with Philip Pearlstein and an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University where he studied with Leon Golub and Joan Semmel among others. In 2000 he attended Leonetto Tintori’s Laboratory for Buon Fresco in Vainella Italy.

He has taught art history at Parsons School of Design, and both studio and art history at Wagner College and Borough of Manhattan Community College. He was a member of The Painting Center, NYC.

He has worked as an independent curator, organizing exhibitions on contemporary fresco painting, portraiture and self-portraiture and other topics. As the Art Curator at the Staten Island Museum, since 2011, he organized the inaugural exhibitions at the Museum’s new building at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in 2015.

The Sculpture Series is an on-going exploration of figurative sculptures that I select for the life they embody. As a painter engaged with portraiture as my primary subject, I find these sculptures as compelling as working for the life. Works come from diverse cultures and eras, and are made from marble, clay, wood and metal.

David Seccombe: Wall to Wall #25

poster-2017-david-secommbe

After 43 years of working in the same West Village basement studio, what do you do when Sandy comes and wipes it all out? If you are David Seccombe, you paint on your dining room table, planning new pieces. You borrow time in a friend’s studio, cut out modular segments and make a wall-to-wall sculpture that looks like it was built in a big barn.

David says, “When you make a painting you use the whole format, from side to side; that’s what I do in sculpture.” His latest work, which spans the Project Room from side to side, is the third installation he has made for this site, but just one of the scores of drawings and elevations in his growing archive of ideas.

David Seccombe’s first sculpture exhibit, in 1961 at the Brata Gallery on 3rd Avenue and 10th Street, featured a large metal piece which hung from the ceiling. In the half-century since then, his work has been shown across the country and internationally, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, N.Y.F.A., the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation, and others.

A Westbeth “pioneer” he and his family moved in while the cement was still fresh on the stairway in their apartment. Many of his older pieces are familiar features of our courtyard landscape.

Early Childhood Puppet Theater: Penny Jones & Co THE CIRCUS AND SEBASTIAN

penn-y-jones-puppet-show-winter-season

NOW Saturday and Sunday Shows!

A puppet ballet to the rollicking music of Kabalevsky’s symphonic suite, The Comedians. Sebastian, a park attendant, yearns for a job with the Circus. But the lion roars at him, the horse throws him, the elephant sits on him and the ballerina snubs him. He is fired and despairs until a circus dog teaches him the art of tightrope waking.

“An utterly charming and exquisite show. The puppets are glorious” -Gannet Newspapers

“Delightful ”
– New York Magazine

​“It’s a charmer”
– WNYC
DATES:
Saturday January 21st
Sunday January 29th
Saturday February 18th
Sunday February 26th
Saturday March 4th

TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT www.pennypuppets.org
or CASH ONLY at the door 30 minutes before the show
Tickets are $10 for all ages
Show Times: 11 AM & 2:30 PM
All Ages – Great for 3 to 8
Stroller Parking
Shows Run about 45 Minutes
Information: (212) 924-0525
www.pennypuppets.org

Where: Westbeth Community Room 155 Bank Street New York, NY
(enter through Bank Street courtyard).

BUS AND SUBWAY: M14A, M11, M20, (2 blocks)
A, C, E, L, 1, 2, 3 (5 or 6 blocks)

“A Child’s first experience with theater is important and forming. Quality counts.” – Penny Jones

PENNY JONES & CO. PUPPETS has been a mainstay of children’s theater in New York since the 1970’s. The company specializes in informal puppet shows for children aged three to eight, and puppet ballets with live music for audiences of adults, children or both. The company performs in collaboration with chamber ensembles and orchestras. The repertory includes adaptations of classical works as well as original stories and scores. In schools, the company has performed hundreds of times, and Penny has a wide variety of programs from puppet pageants with a cast and crew of 30 to 90 school children, to workshops for small classes, and Penny’s “One on One” – interweaving puppetry, storytelling, movement and arts.

The company has appeared on television, in the Henson International Puppet Festival at the Public Theatre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, at BAM with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, at City Center, Avery Fisher Hall, and in museums including The Museum of the City of New York, The Children’s Museum of New York, the American Museum of Natural History, at Emelin, Wave Hill, the Washington Square Music Festival, at venues from Macy’s to Barnes & Noble, and with orchestras at Bargemusic, Casa de España, Greenwich House Music School, with the New Jersey Symphony, out on the Hudson Piers, up on the Highline and many, many, more…

Kate Walter’s collection of LGBT
memorabilia is featured this June
at Jefferson Market LIbrary

Kate Walter Library image

Location: Jefferson Market Library 425 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY, 10011
(212) 243-4334

Date: month of June

Hours: Library open 7 days a week – 10 am – 6pm (varies)

LGBT memorabilia of Westbeth resident and author, Kate Walter,
is featured this June in the lobby of the Jefferson Market Library.

Kate loaned the library dozens of buttons from pride marches, from
the 1980s and 1990s. This display is part of the Greenwich Village
Ephemera project.

Kate Walter is the author of Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of
Downtown Heartbreak and Healing (Heliotrope Books, 2015)

Elisabeth Condon in The Conference of Birds exhibit at Shirley Fiterman Art Center, NYC closes July 9, 2016

Elisabeth Condon URBAN JUNGLE, 2015 Glitter, acrylic on linen 59 x 59 inches

Elisabeth Condon
URBAN JUNGLE, 2015
Glitter, acrylic on linen
59 x 59 inches

Address: 81 Barclay Street, NYC
Hours: Tues – Sunday 12 noon – 6pm
Dates: May 18 – July 9, 2016

A new exhibit, “The Conference of Birds,” curated by Brenda Zlamany showcases work by 35 artists from New York City and beyond.

To see more of Elisabeth Condon’s work, click here

The exhibit’s theme centers on a 12th-century poem, “The Conference of the Birds,” by the Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar. In this epic, mystical-quest narrative, hundreds of birds embark on a perilous journey in search of a king called “The Simurgh,” who can right the wrongs in their world. They are led by Attar, who has been transformed into a sharp-beaked, crested hoopoe bird. On their journey they pass across seven treacherous valleys: Aban (Flash) or Talab (Quest); Tawheed (Unity); Ishq (Love); Hayrat (Bewilderment); Marifat (Gnosis); Fuqur o Fana (Selflessness and Oblivion) and Istighnah (Detachment).

Some birds give up the journey in each of these valleys, unable to endure. Only 30 birds are left when the flock crosses the final valley — and when they finally find the Simurgh, they simply see a reflection of themselves.

Attar’s poem can be seen as a metaphor for the often perilous journey of self-discovery that artists face, explains curator Zlamany. “This metaphor and the rich imagery of birds in the poem are the gravitational glue that brings together a diverse group of artists for this exhibition,” she says.

The artists featured in the exhibit are: L.C. Armstrong, Brandon Ballengee, Mike Ballou, Rachel Berwick, George Boorujy, Katherine Bowling, Mary Carlson, Elisabeth Condon, Lesley Dill, Eric Dyer, Shauna Finn, Juan Fontanive, Tsibi Geva, Allison Green, Sarah Haviland, Amy Hill, Marya Kazoun, Kurt Hoffman, Sharon Horvath, David Humphrey, Kevin King, Wendy Klemperer, Katharine Kuharic, Valentina La Pier, Paula McCartney, Norma Minkowitz, Laura Newman, Graham Nickson, Jennifer Wynne Reeves, Ron Richter, Christopher Russell, Wade Schuman, Susan Silas, Hunt Slonem, Fred Tomaselli and Brenda Zlamany.

The Shirley Fiterman Art Center, in partnership with the BMCC Foundation Board, a not-for-profit organization, is dedicated to raising funds for student scholarships and ensuring the success of its students, who come from every borough of New York and countries around the world, seeking better lives.

For more information, call (212) 220-8000 ext. 3013.