Performance: grunge*quest movement 10

The atmosphere in Jon Delorme's playspace one cold February night was one of hushed awe. Audience members descended the staircase into a darkened room to find the floor scattered with "Kellyisms": purple glitter, a mirror framed in gold, candles, safety pins, honey, panties. A technicolor image of gumballs was projected on the back wall, casting a soft glow over a host of instruments: a drum set, an accordion, a keyboard, guitars. Tonight would be a special performance for many reasons: it was the 10th movement in Kelly Shaw Willman's remarkable grunge*quest series, her first live collaboration with avant-garde musician Jon Delorme, and the end of her New York residency. Willman will return home to Iowa for some quiet and space, along with a lot more bang for her buck.
The 10th installment of grunge*quest was delicate and magical in sound and imagery. Kelly utilized her voice, chanting her desire for "a quiet year." Delorme moved between a tabletop steel guitar and a Turkish banjo, building a sound that went from pixie dust to a thrashing crescendo. Kelly moved ritualistically through the space, cutting apples, placing panties at the feet of an audience member, spreading glitter. grunge*quest 10 was a perfect finale to the Brooklyn-based phase of this series of movements. It was the work of a woman coming into her own, and sharing that transformational journey. Her creative presence will truly be missed here, but I'm certain we'll be seeing much more of this energetically rising artist. Here is the full video of Kelly and Jon's performance:

grunge*quest movement 10 from Marissa Arterberry on Vimeo.

photos by Arhia Kohlmoos
Kelly Shaw Willman's blog:http://www.kellyshawwillman.blogspot.com
Jon Delorme's blog: http://www.jondelorme.blogspot.com

Performance: grunge*quest movement 10

The atmosphere in Jon Delorme's playspace one cold February night was one of hushed awe. Audience members descended the staircase into a darkened room to find the floor scattered with "Kellyisms": purple glitter, a mirror framed in gold, candles, safety pins, honey, panties. A technicolor image of gumballs was projected on the back wall, casting a soft glow over a host of instruments: a drum set, an accordion, a keyboard, guitars. Tonight would be a special performance for many reasons: it was the 10th movement in Kelly Shaw Willman's remarkable grunge*quest series, her first live collaboration with avant-garde musician Jon Delorme, and the end of her New York residency. Willman will return home to Iowa for some quiet and space, along with a lot more bang for her buck.
The 10th installment of grunge*quest was delicate and magical in sound and imagery. Kelly utilized her voice, chanting her desire for "a quiet year." Delorme moved between a tabletop steel guitar and a Turkish banjo, building a sound that went from pixie dust to a thrashing crescendo. Kelly moved ritualistically through the space, cutting apples, placing panties at the feet of an audience member, spreading glitter. grunge*quest 10 was a perfect finale to the Brooklyn-based phase of this series of movements. It was the work of a woman coming into her own, and sharing that transformational journey. Her creative presence will truly be missed here, but I'm certain we'll be seeing much more of this energetically rising artist. Here is the full video of Kelly and Jon's performance:

grunge*quest movement 10 from Marissa Arterberry on Vimeo.

photos by Arhia Kohlmoos
Kelly Shaw Willman's blog:http://www.kellyshawwillman.blogspot.com
Jon Delorme's blog: http://www.jondelorme.blogspot.com

Now Showing: Marvelous Color

The Caribbean Cultural Center and African Diasporan Institute in Manhattan's latest exhibit is Marvelous Color, a tribute to Black superheroes of the Marvel Comics universe. The exhibition includes artwork from various comics series from the 1960s to the present. In addition to comic book sketches, covers, and illustrations, each wall was hand painted with these superheroes in larger-than-life size. The exhibition was produced by Somos Arte with the help of Marvel's editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada (who also created The Santerians, a team of superheroes based on the Orishas of the Santeria religion: www.santerians.com), and includes some of Marvel's most popular superheroes, such as Storm from the X-Men and The Black Panther, along with other heroes who had their heyday in the 60s and 70s, such as Luke Cage and The Falcon.

My personal favorite ( I was a HUGE X-Men comic book fan growing up) was the wall devoted to Storm, particularly the illustrations of her in that fabulous 1970s costume (she looks part superhero, part Bond girl!) Marvelous Color is on display until February 26th at CCCADI, 408 West 58th Street in New York City. For more information, log onto:
http://www.cccadi.org
http://www.marvelouscolor.com/

Now Showing: Marvelous Color

The Caribbean Cultural Center and African Diasporan Institute in Manhattan's latest exhibit is Marvelous Color, a tribute to Black superheroes of the Marvel Comics universe. The exhibition includes artwork from various comics series from the 1960s to the present. In addition to comic book sketches, covers, and illustrations, each wall was hand painted with these superheroes in larger-than-life size. The exhibition was produced by Somos Arte with the help of Marvel's editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada (who also created The Santerians, a team of superheroes based on the Orishas of the Santeria religion: www.santerians.com), and includes some of Marvel's most popular superheroes, such as Storm from the X-Men and The Black Panther, along with other heroes who had their heyday in the 60s and 70s, such as Luke Cage and The Falcon.

My personal favorite ( I was a HUGE X-Men comic book fan growing up) was the wall devoted to Storm, particularly the illustrations of her in that fabulous 1970s costume (she looks part superhero, part Bond girl!) Marvelous Color is on display until February 26th at CCCADI, 408 West 58th Street in New York City. For more information, log onto:
http://www.cccadi.org
http://www.marvelouscolor.com/

The Art of Sesame Street

Many of us grew up on Sesame Street. It was how we learned about colors, numbers, and letters. For me, Sesame Street became a major creative influence, and I often revisit its imagery for inspiration. The Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary with an exhibition of artwork from yesteryear and now. I love this illustration (above) from the 1970s, with Bob sitting on the stoop (how Brooklyn is that?) and Big Bird looked so different!
Sesame Street introduced young audience to everyone from Richard Pryor to Buffy Sainte-Marie. Its multiracial cast (and multicolored puppets) taught kids about getting along with people from all backgrounds, and respect for different cultures. Here are some wonderful examples:







Sesame Street was a mirror of the times, delving into folk music with the likes of Steve Zuckerman, and some segments were downright psychedelic, like pinball with the Pointer Sisters.





Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street is on display until Feb. 21st, 2010. Check it out and take a colorful stroll down memory lane. Log onto: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/sesamestreet/ for more info

The Art of Sesame Street

Many of us grew up on Sesame Street. It was how we learned about colors, numbers, and letters. For me, Sesame Street became a major creative influence, and I often revisit its imagery for inspiration. The Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary with an exhibition of artwork from yesteryear and now. I love this illustration (above) from the 1970s, with Bob sitting on the stoop (how Brooklyn is that?) and Big Bird looked so different!
Sesame Street introduced young audience to everyone from Richard Pryor to Buffy Sainte-Marie. Its multiracial cast (and multicolored puppets) taught kids about getting along with people from all backgrounds, and respect for different cultures. Here are some wonderful examples:







Sesame Street was a mirror of the times, delving into folk music with the likes of Steve Zuckerman, and some segments were downright psychedelic, like pinball with the Pointer Sisters.





Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street is on display until Feb. 21st, 2010. Check it out and take a colorful stroll down memory lane. Log onto: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/sesamestreet/ for more info

Kelly Shaw Willman: grunge*quest, Movement 7

Performance artist Kelly Shaw Willman's grunge*quest continues, with the most recent glittery installment, Movement 7, taking place within her apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The performance space (Kelly's shared living room) was dimly lit, her audience encircled on plush couches and chairs, surrounding a sculptural installation. The installation evoked feelings of intimacy and girlhood with toys, candy sprinkles, and brightly colored panties carefully arranged. There were three sets of small shelves in the space, containing an array of small spheres covered in glitter, and panties bundled into more sculptural pieces hanging from the ceiling. The piece that most struck my fancy was a brightly colored toy bunny head sitting in a bowl of sprinkles. As the performance began, Kelly started two tape players, one playing recordings of a conversation between several people, and the other playing what seemed to be the sounds of some kind of airplane or engine.
Willman moved through the space doused in flour (or baby powder?), performing a series of almost ritualistic actions. She was a woman stirring her own pot, making her own magic right before our eyes. At one point, she sliced open some apples and filled them with crimson glitter. They looked as though they were oozing a beautiful blood.
At another point, Kelly poured a bowl of honey over her head, most likely as an ode to Oshun, an African deity of love, sensuality and fertility. Oshun's energy was a perfect addition to this very womanly performance piece. And one can't help but make connections between the use of apples in the space and the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden.
Further into the performance, Kelly picked up the various pairs of panties that were on the floor, and placed them at the feet or on the laps of her audience members, along with a small bottle of blue water. Then she walked into the bathroom. Everyone followed her in, and there we witnessed the grand finale, which was Willman sitting in a bathtub full of blue water, covered in red glitter.

Audience members took the bottles full of blue water they'd been given earlier and added it to the bath water. It was almost like a communal baptism of some sort. There she sat peacefully in the tub, as sounds from one of the tape recorders squawked and sputtered in the background. I was reminded of a scene in Ousmane Sembene's 1966 noir film Black Girl, where a French Family's Senegalese maid commits suicide and is found in the bathtub, killing herself in anguish over being mistreated and feeling out of place in a strange new land. Kelly is indeed far from home, but her bathtub scene marked a rebirth of sorts. I cannot wait to see what this remarkable young artist offers up next.

Kelly Shaw Willman: grunge*quest, Movement 7

Performance artist Kelly Shaw Willman's grunge*quest continues, with the most recent glittery installment, Movement 7, taking place within her apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The performance space (Kelly's shared living room) was dimly lit, her audience encircled on plush couches and chairs, surrounding a sculptural installation. The installation evoked feelings of intimacy and girlhood with toys, candy sprinkles, and brightly colored panties carefully arranged. There were three sets of small shelves in the space, containing an array of small spheres covered in glitter, and panties bundled into more sculptural pieces hanging from the ceiling. The piece that most struck my fancy was a brightly colored toy bunny head sitting in a bowl of sprinkles. As the performance began, Kelly started two tape players, one playing recordings of a conversation between several people, and the other playing what seemed to be the sounds of some kind of airplane or engine.
Willman moved through the space doused in flour (or baby powder?), performing a series of almost ritualistic actions. She was a woman stirring her own pot, making her own magic right before our eyes. At one point, she sliced open some apples and filled them with crimson glitter. They looked as though they were oozing a beautiful blood.
At another point, Kelly poured a bowl of honey over her head, most likely as an ode to Oshun, an African deity of love, sensuality and fertility. Oshun's energy was a perfect addition to this very womanly performance piece. And one can't help but make connections between the use of apples in the space and the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden.
Further into the performance, Kelly picked up the various pairs of panties that were on the floor, and placed them at the feet or on the laps of her audience members, along with a small bottle of blue water. Then she walked into the bathroom. Everyone followed her in, and there we witnessed the grand finale, which was Willman sitting in a bathtub full of blue water, covered in red glitter.

Audience members took the bottles full of blue water they'd been given earlier and added it to the bath water. It was almost like a communal baptism of some sort. There she sat peacefully in the tub, as sounds from one of the tape recorders squawked and sputtered in the background. I was reminded of a scene in Ousmane Sembene's 1966 noir film Black Girl, where a French Family's Senegalese maid commits suicide and is found in the bathtub, killing herself in anguish over being mistreated and feeling out of place in a strange new land. Kelly is indeed far from home, but her bathtub scene marked a rebirth of sorts. I cannot wait to see what this remarkable young artist offers up next.

Performance: Aisha Tandiwe Bell

Bear with me folks. I'm going to try really hard to describe what defies description. Artist Aisha Tandiwe Bell's performance at Brooklyn's Corridor Gallery was mesmerizing and soul-stirring. I've never seen anything like it.
Aisha is a multimedia artist. She works in performance, sculpture, and painting, so I arrived at Corridor not knowing what to expect. I found a space that was alive with her installations of Black girls gracing the walls.
When viewing Bell's visual works, I was struck by the skilled rendering of her figures. The Black girls were drawn with sullen expressions on their faces, and had hollow white ceramic faces attached to their heads. I loved the fact that the ceramic faces cast shadows onto the girls' heads.
Other figures incorporated fabric and more of her beautiful sculptural pieces. The repetition of faces and forms, with some emerging out of bodies suggest connections to ancestry. And for people of African descent, ancestry can be fraught with pain and mysteries to unravel. Bell's characters appear to carry around ghostly weights. Aisha says her work "is about our individual burdens, insecurities, and self-prescribed traps, walls, armor, masks, stereotypes, that we wear/carry out of habit, comfort, fear, sloth, and shame. However, my work also explores our ability to transform, resist and escape these traps." In the center of the room was a tin tub filled with blue water and surrounded by rows of ceramic faces. When the performance began, she handed each member of the audience 2 faces and instructed us to bang them together in a particular rhythm. As we beat the faces together, Aisha donned a white skirt and top, and a belt with the ceramic faces hanging from it. She began to wind her waist in time to the beat, and the faces began to clatter and crash together. The sound it created was otherworldly. Bell danced until the faces broke in pieces and fell to the floor. When all the faces had broken and fallen off, Aisha got into the tin tub and began bathing herself in the blue water. By this time the energy in the room was so heightened that the rhythm the audience had started beating with the faces sped up to a feverish pace.
The performance and installation were so powerful. It was the finale of Bell's month-long residency at Corridor Gallery, and what a finish it was! Aisha Tandiwe Bell is definitely an artist to watch. Expect to see much more of her here on Black Butterfly. For more on Bell and her work, check out her website:
http://www.superhueman.com

And for more info. on the Corridor Gallery:
http://www.corridorgallerybrooklyn.org

And check out this amazing video of one of Aisha's past performances: