New York Times film reviewer Manhole Dargis recommends Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Screenplay to Velvet Underground
New York Times January 19, 2022

The Reviews

New York Times Best Films of 2021
Like “Summer of Soul,” this documentary revisits the music of the 1960s in a spirit that is more historical than nostalgic. Rather than assemble present-day musicians to pay tribute to their forebears, Haynes concentrates on the Velvets in their moment and on the artistic scene that spawned them. NYT 2021 Best Films

Rolling Stone
“Velvet Underground feels peculiarly attuned to its moment, to even the question of how to properly depict the moment. It knowingly yet searchingly feels its way through the question of how artists become themselves. Which is sort of a dead question — what inspired this? what kind of a mind came up with this? — because we ask it of artists often and are rarely given answers that sound true. Velvet Underground is clearly willing to do the diligence of providing the moods and contexts and backstories at one needs to give that question a bit of factual heft, however much it streamlines much of this in favor of being as capacious as possible. But what I get from, say, peeking behind the curtain of Reed’s upbringing and depressions as I watch this movie isn’t a clear and simple pathway to the man’s art (or heart, for that matter). It is instead the far more intriguing and murky problem of a private life, a creative life that will never fully be known to me.”

-K. Austin Collins Oct 15, 2021
Read the entire review at Rolling Stone

New York Times
“Haynes doesn’t just want you to listen to the reminiscences of band members and their friends, lovers and collaborators, or to groove on vintage video of the band in action. He wants you to hear just how strange and new the Velvets sounded, to grasp, intuitively as well as analytically, where that sound came from. And also to see — to feel, to experience — the aesthetic ferment and sensory overload of mid-60s Manhattan”

A.O. Scott Oct 22, 2021
Read the entire review in New York Times

Roger Ebert.com
Be aware, though, that viewers who come into Haynes’ two-hour movie “The Velvet Underground” looking for a primer on the band, Lou Reed, John Cale, Maureen “Mo” Tucker, Nico, Andy Warhol, Mary Woronov, The Factory, and other famous names and locations may find the experience disorienting. Despite the presence of traditional documentary elements, and a mostly linear story that pulls you through about 20 years’ of cultural history, Haynes and his collaborators make the experience feel new and surprising, assembling the component parts with an eye towards making not just a movie, but an experience—something that you feel, as you might feel the drums during a live music performances: in your gut.

-Matt Zoller Seitz Oct 13, 2021
Read entire review on Roger Ebert.com

Westbeth Board member Esther Robinson is an award-winning filmmaker/producer. Her critically acclaimed directorial debut A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory took top prizes at the Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals. It was re-released theatrically in 2019. As a producer and executive producer her recent titles include (among others): the Academy Award Nominated film Strong Island by Yance Ford, and Memories of a Penitent Heart by Cecilia Aldarondo which premiered in the 2017 season of the PBS series. Additionally, She is an active board member of Women Make Movies, a recipient of Fractured Atlas’ 2014 Arts Entrepreneurship Award and a mom to Otis age 5.

Read more about Esther Robinson

Apple Original Films and Polygram Entertainment present
in association with Federal Films a Motto Pictures and Killer Films production
“THE VELVET UNDERGROUND” a documentary film by Todd Haynes
Associate Producer J. Daniel Torres Line Producer Marissa Torres Ericson Co-Producers Josh Braun Dan Braun Esther Robinson Music Supervision by Randall Poster Archival Producers Wyatt Stone Bryan O’keefe Cinematography by Edward Lachman, asc Edited by Affonso Gonçalves, ace Adam Kurnitz Executive Producers Danny Bennett Pamela Koffler John Sloss Produced by David Blackman Produced by Julie Goldman Christopher Clements Carolyn Hepburn
Produced by Christine Vachon
Directed and Produced by Todd Haynes

Friday December 17, 2021 at 7PM
Westbeth Community Room
FREE Screening

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is a 2020 American documentary film directed, written and co-produced by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht. Barack and Michelle Obama serve as executive producers.

Crip Camp starts in 1971 at Camp Jened, a summer camp in New York described as a “loose, free-spirited camp designed for teens with disabilities”. With disability activists, Larry Allison, Judith Heumann, James LeBrecht, Denise Sherer Jacobson, and Stephen Hofmann, the film focuses on those campers who turned themselves into activists for the disability rights movement and follows their fight for accessibility legislation.

Crip Camp had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2020, where it won the Audience Award. It has received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 99 reviews.

Westbeth Gallery celebrates Winter with a block buster show of over 75 artists.

Exhibition Dates: November 20– December 17, 2021

Exhibiton Location: Westbeth Gallery 155 Bank Street, New York, NY
Exhibition Hours: Wednesday – Sunday 1PM – 6PM

Belatedly coinciding with Westbeth Artists Housing 50th anniversary, Westbeth Gallery ‘s Winter Show, presents a selection of remarkable new work created by over 75 emerging and established Westbeth artists.

Working within the parameters of self-quarantine and the unsettled times, the exhibit explores both implicity and explicitly the eloquent response of visiual artists’ through a range of their artistic practice, including painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, photography, mixed media, multi media, textile art, and installation.

For so long, places of art were silent and the art of the residents artists isolated. With this show, Westbeth Gallery has created not only place of beauty and vitality, but an environment that captures the essence of artistic dialogue and inspiration. And, in the tradition of art as the questioner of the status quo, the show also explores issues of racisim, identity and environmental degradation.

The Winter Show is the result of the achievement of art to transform lives.

The exhibit also introduces the changes in the gallery during the past two years when it was closed . Working in close collaboration with Ellen Salpeter, Westbeth CEO, and the Visual Arts team of the Westbeth Artists Residents Council chaired by Mourrice Papi, the Gallery has been updated with new lighting, funded by Westbeth Beautification Committee, and new branding designed by Topos Graphics.

For further info: westbethgallery@gmail.com

November 9, 2021– January 7, 2022

Artist’s Reception: Thursday, November 11th from 12:00 – 6:00 pm

Bookstein Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Olive Ayhens. This is the artist’s fifth solo show with the gallery.

Executed over the last two years, the works in this exhibition were predominantly started and executed during the COVID-19 quarantine in New York City. Having recently moved from Brooklyn to the West Village, the artist found herself in a new neighborhood that was completely deserted and ripe for exploration. Having no one around allowed the artist to connect more immediately with the architecture and buildings in her new neighborhood, which would have normally been quite busy. Like many artists, Ayhens found a renewed passion for painting during the pandemic because it allowed her to concentrate on something productive, in an almost meditative way.

In Overpop Jamboree, the masterstroke of the exhibition, the artist has invented an urban landscape replete with a myriad of vibrantly colored buildings. While the painting does not represent a specific city, there are many skyscrapers that are reminiscent of actual buildings including Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building, New York (1913), Frank Gehry’s New York by Gehry, New York (2011), Foster and Partners’ Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center, Astana, Kazakhstan (2010), and Spanish architecture by Antoni Gaudí. In the lower right corner of the painting, a large crowd scene spills out of the picture plane. While Ayhens was initially interested in visually representing overpopulation, she resigned herself to the notion that it could not be done effectively and resorted to a crowd scene instead. Contrasting against the vivid colors of the city, the crowd scene is executed in a grisaille palette inspired by an ­­Old Master painting. In Waves are Coming, inspired by DUMBO, a modern glass building is raised on stilts to protect it from the rising waters of the East River crashing at its base. Higher up on the building’s glass façade, reflections of the East River blur the lines between what is inside and what it outside.

Olive Ayhens (b. Oakland, CA) received her BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. In addition to her extensive exhibition history, Ayhens has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants including the Joan Mitchell Grant, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award and Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant. Artist residencies include The Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program, MacDowell Colony, Fundacion Valparaiso, the Salzburg Kunsterhaus, Yaddo Artist Residency, Djerassi Artist Residency, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Roswell Artist Residency, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and a residency at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in 2017. The artist lives and works in New York City.

Bookstein Projects
60 East 66 th Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10065

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.

For additional information and/or visual materials, please contact the gallery at (212) 750-0949 or
email at info@booksteinprojects.com.

Tuesday November 9, 2021
1pm – 7pm
Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank Street
New York, NY
Enter through courtyard

All Registered Donors at the blood drive will be automatically entered into New York Blood Center’s November 2021 Sweepstakes with a chance to win one of three Target or Walmart Gift Vouchers1st prize – $1,500 gift voucher, 2nd prize – $1,000 gift voucher, 3rd prize – $750

Appointments are preferred however walk-ins will be welcomed if space permits.
Please remember to eat, drink, and bring your donor ID card or ID with name and photo.
Masks are required for all donors regardless of vaccination status.

CLICK HERE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT: New York Blood Drive at Westbeth

Sponsored by Westbeth Artists Residents Council