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OnTV “ Or e ns a nz2008: TheFa r Re a c he sof Spa c e ”
_ cal endar Nov ember2011 Nov ember17, 6: 00pm Rus s i anAr t sFes t i v al 2011 Andr eyBogos l ows ky Ex hi bi t i onOpeni ng Nov ember , 21, 6: 00pm. Fel i x&Dex t erpr es entFel i x&Dex t er Ex hi bi t i onOpeni ng Nov ember22, 6: 00pm Rus s i anAr t sFes t i v al 2011 Al ex anderKedr i n Ex hi bi t i onOpeni ng Nov ember27, 6: 00pm Rus s i anAr t sFes t i v al 2011 Ser geSi ni t s y n Ex hi bi t i onOpeni ng December2, 6: 00pm Rus s i anAr t sFes t i v al 2011 Nat al i aNor dman Ex hi bi t i onOpeni ng
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Hot From the Archives
Angel Orensanz’s Space Explorations
“L
ook down, there’s everything! Everything is what Mars is, and it looks exactly like your apartment!” “We are exploring a beautiful galaxy littered with planets, pieces of exploded rockets, asteroids and meteors with pretty tails sweeping through outer space.” Bob Holman dedicated this poem to Angel Orensanz in 2004 when, with his circle of poets, he staged a night of reading within the physical confines of Orensanz’s Flying in Nasa’s Lab installation at Norfolk Street. Four years later, spotted around the island of Manhattan, during the Armory Show week, was a silver shuttle vehicle embodying the imaginative voyage of Angel Orensanz. The mobil art installation, conceived by the artist and curated by Jan Van Woensel and Greggory Bradford, continued his challenging attitute towards conventional ways of exhibiting, this interventional project encompassed the artist’s explorations of time, space, and memory of the past few years. The 2008’s piece The Far Reaches of Space recalled three former art works of Angel Orensanz: Burning Universe (2002), Steppes of Mars (2005) and Flying in Nasa’s Lab (2004).
As a time capsule that physically and symbolically expressed Orensanz’s ideas of space and travel, the nomadic shuttle was temporarily stationed at selected art havens in the city. Upon embarking at these key locations, the vehicle transformed into a stage of live music and poetry performances. A private viewing cinema inside the shuttle vehicle exhibited the aforementioned Orensanz’s sculptures, installations and public performances captured in photo and video. Further elaborating on the peripatetic nature of the artist, the traversing project Orensanz 2008, The Far Reaches of Space took the New York City art scene as its primary mission. Probably at its highest peak moment of the year, with the Armory Show as a powerful motherhood that comes surrounded by many satellite art fairs and special events, this project added a whimsical element to the art frenzy of these days. In a poetic style, Orensanz 2008 navigated the city independently and unannounced, producing only impulses of motion, sound and experience without leaving traces. Positioned at the crossing paths of two worlds, Orensanz 2008, The Far Reaches of Space recalled the past and celebrated the present. You can watch episodes of the journey here
Above and below, Angel Orensanz’s “Flying in Nasa’s Lab” (2004) © Klara Palotai
Angel Orensanz’s “Flying in Nasa’s Lab” (2004) © Klara Palotai
H
ailing from the Bronx with roots in the Dominican Republic, artist-brother duo Felix and Dexter Ciprián work in art, photography, performance, and film. They began their joint venture in 2007 at the annual Deitch Art Parade in SoHo with a piece that was part performance, part sculpture, part event. Since then, their work has been an ongoing effort in the breaking down of labels and categories. Their work embodies an exciting urban edge and an authentic insider-outsider art hope. They have been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, ArtNet Magazine; their latest collaboration “Se Acerca Un Ciclon”, premiered at BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange). Their upcoming exhibition, “Felix & Dexter Present: FELIX & DEXTER” will open on November 21st at the Angel Orensanz Foundation.
Exhibition Opening November 21 | 6pm Angel Orensanz Foundation, Inc. (Museum Level) 172 Norfolk Street, New York NY, 10002. T. 212 529 7194 www.felixanddexter.com
At Angel Orensanz Foundation
Russian Arts Festival 2011
T
he Angel Orensanz Foundation and the Russian Academy of Arts proudly present the Russian Arts Festival 2011. As a cultural institution, Orensanz Foundation is proud to host again this festival celebrating Russian arts and culture in all its expressions. Our organization has established numerous links with Russia for the last twenty years, well promoting its artists, well bringing Angel Orensanz’s artwork to several Russian institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, the Hermitage or the Alexander Pushkin Museum, among others. In this occasion, The Russian Arts Festival will pay special tribute to the Russian New Yorkers killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11, as well as to the artistic contribution of Zurab Tsereteli, director of the Russian Academy of Fine Art and a prolific artist with numerous pieces around the world. For this reason, and as a remembrance of the ones disappeared on that tragic events, the festival will present the exhibition Photos of the WTC by Anatoly Pronin and Angel Orensanz’s video for 9/11. Other artists included in our program are Grigory Gurevich, Andrey Bogoslowsky, Alexander Kedrin, Serge Sinitsyn and Natalia Nordman. Photography, sculpture, video and painting will be presented in our “Russian Month”. We welcome you all to enjoy it! Al Orensanz Director
RUSSIAN ARTS FESTIVAL 2011 November 14 – December 14 Angel Orensanz Foundation, Inc. (Basement gallery) 172 Norfolk Street, New York NY, 10002. T. 212 529 7194 foundation@orensanz.org Click here for the complete program and artist’s bios w w w . f e l i x a n d d e x t e r . c o m
ART in NY
IFPDA PRINT FAIR 2011 November 3 - 6, 2011 | Park Avenue Armory
T
he 21st Annual IFPDA (International Fine Print Dealers Association) Print Fair was presented at the Park Avenue Armory from November 3rd to November 6th 2011. The Print Fair is unique for its focus on one artistic medium –printmaking-- and the unrivaled quality of works on view from the 16th through the 21st century. The fair, sponsored this year by The Wall Street Journal and City National Bank, featured prints by over 90 prestigious international art dealers from Europe and North America, all members of the International Fine Print Dealers Association. This year’s roster of exhibitors included notable dealers such as Pace Prints, Marlborough Graphics, Two Palms, David Tunick, Inc., The Paragon Press, Hill-stone, Inc., R.E. Lewis & Daughter, Gemini G.E.L., and Barbara Krakow Gallery. It was the extensive historical scope and wide availability of work at all different price ranges that draws an eclectic mix of collectors to this fair annually. According to the IFPDA President, Tara K. Reddi, “it is through the vetted expertise of our dealers that the fair is able to offer works of the highest quality from the affordable to the extremely rare.” The IFPDA Print Fair premiered in 1991 and was unique for its focus on a single medium and its offering of works across the art historical spectrum by an international group of art dealers. It is the largest international art fair dedicated to exhibiting fine prints from all periods. The IFPDA Print Fair attracts 6,000 visitors every year, including new and high profile collectors, museum directors, curators and noted philanthropists. A private view
party benefiting the IFPDA Foundation, its nonprofit arm, was held on November 2nd, drawing over 1500 collectors. For the first time this year, some of New York’s top restaurants and chefs provided tasting stations, which proved to be a very popular initiative. In 2001, the first New York Fine Print Week was launched by the IFPDA to extend the mission of the print fair, which, aside from serving as the world’s leading opportunity to acquire the finest works on the market, had also become a forum for dealers, collectors, curators, and scholars to gather and exchange ideas. The Print Week reinforces the fair’s additional objectives, which aims to help the general public understand what a fine print is, why artists choose to make prints, and why collectors and other lovers of art value them. If you are wondering what exactly is a print –a “fine” or “original”— the answer is a work of art that has been conceived by the artist to be realized as a multiple, an edition artwork. It is not a copy of a drawing or a painting. An artist creates a print by drawing or carving a composition on a hard surface such as wood block, metal plate, or stone. This surface is then inked by hand and the image is transferred to paper or another material by applying pressure, thus creating an “impression” or print. Prints usually exist in multiple impressions, each pulled by hand from the inked surface. Editions are the set of identical impressions (prints) made from an individual matrix created by the artist, either working alone or in conjunction with a master printer. The
View of Alan Cristea Gallery booth, with the work of Richard Woods in the background
range of different techniques and media is surprisingly vast, from lithography and aquatint to ballpoint engraving, silkscreen or photgravures, among others.
signed as early as the eighteenth century, the practice of signing one’s work in pencil or ink didn’t really become common practice until the 1880’s.
Regarding the sometimes unclear and vague issue of the edition’s numbering, there some basic concepts to bear in mind, whether you are collector or an art aficionado. While the numbering of individual impressions can be found as early as the late nineteenth century, it did not become standard practice until the mid- 1960’s. Numbering is now transcribed as a fraction with the top number signifying the number of prints in the edition. The edition number doesn’t include proofs, but only the total number of prints in the numbered edition. In printmaking today, the numbering sequence is not intended to reflect the order of printing. Proof is a term that generally refers to any impression pulled before the artist has finalized the edition as ready to print. An artist may continue to make changes and adjustments until the ‘Bon à Tirer’ (B.A.T) proof is created, literally ‘ready to print’ proof. Proofs of various “states” often reveal various stages of the artist’s process through which the final image is achieved. Also an essential element, signatures tell a viewer a lot about the authenticity and dating of a print. The very earliest prints didn’t have signatures at all, although by the late fifteenth century many artists indicated their authorship of a print by incorporating a signature or a monogram into the plate design, as Albrecht Dürer’s well-known monogram. This kind of composition is called “signed in the plate” or “plate signature.” While some prints were pencil
Looking again at this year’s edition of the fair, one could browse through and enjoy nearly 500 years of printmaking from early woodcuts and traditional engravings to etchings, lithographs, and innovative contemporary projects. The wide historical spectrum of artists’ works on view included old masters Rembrandt, Dürer, and Goltzius; Japanese ukiyo-e; 19th century American masters Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, and Mary Cassatt; European Impressionists Degas and Renoir; American and European Modernists George Bellows, Martin Lewis, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Max Beckmann; and postwar masterworks by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell, and Louis Bourgeois. The fair is also notable as a platform for the launch of new editions and visitors can view and acquire the latest projects by leading contemporary artists such as Chuck Close, Kiki Smith, Richard Serra, and John Baldessari. Among the booths that attracted more attention this year, for one reason or another, were the following. A wonderful etching by internationally acclaimed artist Anish Kapoor was offered at the booth of The Paragon Press (London). Gemini G.E.L. (Los Angeles), known for its master printers, presented a new etching by Richard Serra, entitled Ballast I (2011). The renowned Alan Cristea Gallery (London)
R. Hamilton, “Fashion Plate” (1969-70), photo-offset lithograph, collage, screenprints, and pochoir, retouched with cosmetics, edition of 70 © Sims Reed Gallery.
Francisco de Goya, “La Tauromaquia”, etching with aquatint, drypoint and engraving © Harris Schrank Fine Prints
showcased several new notable works including Lisa Ruyter’s woodcut on Japanese Unryu-shi paper, and the astounding Richard Woods’ Woodblock Inlays, among others. Robert Cottingham, best known for his impressive photorealist paintings, collaborated with Tandem Press (Wisconsin) on the eye-catching work An American Alphabet. The project, which began in 1997, will attain the 26th letter this year to first be introduced at the fair. Pia Gallo from New York exhibited Henri Matisse’s Dix Danseuses: One plate (1925-26). The elegant lithograph is signed in pencil, numbered 103/130. The gallery also showed The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, after Titian (1540), a woodcut print by Niccolo Boldrini. The color lithograph, Reply to Stanley Hayter (1996), numbered 46 of an edition of 70, by noteworthy contemporary artist Louise Bourgeois was on view at the booth of Goya Contemporary (Baltimore). The Chicago based gallery R.S Johnson Fine Arts continued to encompass museum quality works with Mary Cassatt’s In the Opera Box (1878-80). This rare print is a soft-ground, aquatint and etching, signed at the lower left. The work highlights Cassatt’s incorporation of abstract, flat designs inspired by Japanese prints.
A drawing study for this work is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Rosenwald Collection). Master Spanish printmaker, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was a significant highlight of Harris Schrank Fine Prints (New York) and the Print Fair as a whole. The complete set of 33 etchings of La Tauromaquia (1814-16) was exhibited. Another giant name in printmaking, Rembrandt van Rijn, was the focus at David Tunick, Inc (New York), which showed The Great Jewish Bride (1635), and as a centerpiece The Three Trees (1643), the most famous landscape in graphic art. This impression, which once belonged to the King of Portugal, may be the finest, richest print to appear on the market in half-century or more. Other highlights included the comprehensive display of William Kentrigde’s extraordinary works at the booth of Robert Brown Gallery’s (Washington). British Pop Art pioneer, Richard Hamilton was a remarkable feature of Sims Reed Gallery (London). On view was his print Fashion Plate (1969-70), a photo-offset lithograph, collage, screen-print from two stencils and pochoir,
View of the IFPDA Print Fair 2011, at the booth of Robert Brown Gallery with the work of William Kentridge
retouched with cosmetics by the artist, edition of 70. Additionally, The Old Print Shop featured a stunning Arthur Wesley Dow’s 1893 color woodcut print entitled Lily. The print is a uniquely large size for a woodcut print by the artist, and carries a resonance of botanical illustrated books with a slightly Oriental aesthetics. It is known that as a boy, Wesley Dow devoured books on Colonial history at the Ipswich library and later at the Boston Public Library, where he discovered a book of prints by Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai. Senior & Shopmaker Gallery (New York) presented an offset lithograph of Andy Warhol’s Liz (1964), a silkscreen portrait of Elizabeth Taylor derived from press clippings, publicity shots and film stills. Childs Gallery (Boston) offered American Modernist Rockwell Kent’s Forest Pool, a 1927 wood engraving. For those versed in oriental art, there were plenty of booths showcasing magnificent, subtle Japanese prints, as in Egenolf Gallery (California), offering the likes of Harunobu’s intimate domestic scenes, and the iconic landscapes by Hiroshige.
Whether your arts inclinations are for the challenging or the smooth, the historic or the cutting-edge, the fashionably new or the traditionally old, the IFPDA Print was no sleepy event, with a display that was certain to engage any profile and also attract major buyers. For a full list of exhibitors you can visit the fair’s website.
Marta Arenal
Utagawa Hiroshige “Kôzuke Province, Mount Haruna Under Snow” (1853), Woodblock print, first edition © Egenolf Gallery
Culture in NY
Margaret Mead Film Festival Featured Documentary: “Space Sailors” by Marian Kiss November 10-13, 2011 | The American Museum of Natural History
“A
nthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.” --Margaret Mead. The annual Margaret Mead Film Festival took place from, November 10-13 at The American Museum of Natural History. It celebrated its 35th Anniversary as the longest-running international documentary festival in the United States. Since 1977, the legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead and her festival has given us the opportunity to explore the extraordinary lives of the people and diverse cultures of our small planet through the compelling and captivating documentaries showcased each year. Over 35 films from more than 30 countries were featured, including 7 U.S. premiers, all selected from over 1,000 international and national submissions. These films explored various themes of space, the economic struggle, the environment, ethnography and contemporary Native American experiences. There were seven filmmakers who competed for the Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award in which one was Marian Kiss—a close friend of the Angel Orensanz Foundation. The acclaimed Academy Award nominee director Darren Aronofsky, whose films include, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler ,and Black Swan, was head of the Filmmaker Award jury. The winner of the highly coveted award went to Yuanchen Liu, director of To the Light, a documentary film about Chinese coal miners. Space Sailors is more than just a film about past political ideology—Socialism, Communism, the Cold War, the former Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall, etc. It
is a film that gave back the voice of the men who traveled into the space in hopes to, “explore space for peaceful purposes.” They are the forgotten heroes of our space age generation. Marian Kiss sheds light on the ‘Interkosmos Programme’ that allowed nine different Socialist countries to send out their best cosmonauts into space; when at the time, only the two superpowers --USSR and the US-- had gone into space. [Space Sailors, alongside Space Tourists, directed by Academy-Award nominee Christian Frei, was also part of the Mead Festival’s ‘Dreams of Outer Space’ Series in conjunction with the Museum of Natural History’s upcoming exhibition, Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration.] The ‘Interkosmos Programme’, created by the former Soviet Union, organized space missions between 1978-1988, “to demonstrate the superiority and unity of the socialist system to the entire world.” Kiss traces the lives of ten cosmonauts who went on space missions through this program: Bertalan Farkas (Hungary) —Kiss’s “hero”--, Sigmund Jahn (Germany), Dumitru Dorin Prunarui (Romania), Jugderdemid Gurragcha (Mongolia), Georgi Ivanov (Bulgaria), Miroslav Hermaszewski (Poland), Vladimir Remek (Czechoslovakia), Pham Tuan (Vietnam), Abdul Ahad Momand (Afghanistan), and Armaldo Tamayo Mendez (Cuba). These highly publicized space missions brought instant fame and success to these men. However, Kiss further explored the lives of these men through the central question, what happens when it all goes away? What lies ahead for these once glorified cosmonauts’ lives? Farkas even asks at the end of the film, “When you reach your zenith at a young age, what do you do then?”
Al Orensanz in conversation with director Marian Kiss before the opening of the ‘Russian Arts Festival, 2011’ © Klara Palotai
The old and decrepit spaceship shells shown throughout the film seem to parallel the lives of the cosmonauts-- reminiscent of their glorious past. The Mongolian cosmonaut even keeps his ‘Soyuz’ spacecraft capsule--a keepsake, behind a curtain in his living room. However, maybe it is not necessarily all about fame? Rather, about living. The Afghan cosmonaut offers his recollection of what was going through his mind while his spacecraft was entering back into the earth’s surface. He explains that at that moment watching the fire from the earth’s atmosphere rush towards him, the mission felt irrelevant and all he wanted to do was to, “just live.” Essentially, these men lived and survived, and went on with their lives after their missions into space. Some continued to work for the government/ military like, Pham Tuan who is Lieutenant General, Chief of the General Administration and Chief of the Army Bank, Tamayo Mendez who is the Director of Cuba’s Civil Defense organization and head of National Security, Vladimir Remek who is Czech Deputy in the European Parliament, Gurragcha is now Mongolia’s Defense Minister and Sigmunc Jahn is a freelance consultant in the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center and German Center for Space Travel. Dorin Prunariu worked for the Romanian government as the Ambassador to Russia for several years —he now works in Brussels and has published several books on space travel technology. Miroslav Hermaszewski is now retired after working for Poland’s Military Committee for National Salvation. Georgi Ivanov and Bertalan Farkas, however, were both shunned after the Iron Curtain fell. Ivanov was erased from textbooks and forced into an early retirement from the Bulgarian National Assembly. Farkas was, “condemned as a state puppet,”
and also forced to retire as a Hungarian diplomat. However, Ivanov moved on to becoming a millionaire of a gulf club. On the other hand, Farkas never fully recovered and is still living on a pension. Abdul Ahad Momand also has not had much luck. He had to escape to Germany when the Taliban came to power and found himself on a “death list.” It is presumed that he works for a printing company. Despite the fall of Communism, Socialism and the Soviet Union, these brave men continued their lives with a new perspective of the world—a more heightened one only a select few can ever attain. The Interkosmos Programme gave these “poor, desolate and underdeveloped” countries a chance to show the rest of the world what they were capable of. Most of the cosmonauts Kiss documented came from humble beginnings —from small villages and simple lives where space travel was only a meager dream. However, their lives dramatically changed when they were chosen to be cosmonauts and heroes to their countries —their childhood dreams came true. These cosmonauts were the first and only men in their respective countries to fly into space —and that in its self is an accomplishment Kiss wanted to elaborate on in her documentary. To learn more about the Margaret Mead Film Festival and the other documentaries shown please visit their website for more information.
Mary Paulyshun
Marian Kiss, Space Sailors; original German poster
Still shots from Space Sailors (above: Bertalan Farkas)
Recent Events
Edible Escape Tasting Party Photographic Report
I
t just happened three weeks ago. One didn’t need to leave New York to taste exotic flavors from all over the world. On October 19th, from 6 to 9PM, the Lower East Side was once again Manhattan’s biggest melting pot, at Edible’s first-ever travelthemed tasting held at the Angel Orensanz Foundation –right in the heart of the neighborhood. As they made their way around the oldest synagogue in the city, guests could ‘travel’ around the world, tasting everything from locally made wines to kati rolls from India. The event Edible Escape was celebrated in honor of Edible’s first-ever travelthemed issue, produced by Edible Manhattan magazine, in partnership with the Organic Valley Family of Farms, Wines of South Africa, Long Island Wine Council, Edible Communities and Stella Artois.
Tacos with Braised Pork, Mexican style Coleslaw, and Chopped Peanuts from Mercadito. Then there were the Philippines with a ‘Noritaco’ made with Philippine Heirloom Rice, Heritage Pork Adobo, and Salad of Bittermelon salad from Purple Yam; to finish it off, dessert was provided by the wellknown Edi & The Wolf Austrian restaurant, with a tasting of the worldwide famous Sacher Cake, with Chocolate Mousse and Apricot Gelée. In the drinks section, tastings of wine were provided by the New York State’s Shawangunk Wine Trail, and South African Wines. Also for those smooth on the palate, Tuthilltown Spirits offered a tasting of Hudson Whiskey. Hopefully you were there to partake in this trip back in time and around the world, but if you weren’t, be sure to check out these fantastic melting-pot scenes of Edible Escape Party.
At the Angel Orensanz Foundation magical space, South America and South Africa were tasted, with Crispas from Palo Santo, and Malva Pudding from Madiba, respectively. Spain meant ‘Gildas’ from the Basque Country’s Txikito, and delectable Gazpacho with Extra Virgin Olive Oil; Mexico brought Carnitas
Edible embraces an integral food and drink community. Its members are best known as champions of local foods, and rightly so. They’re farmer market addicts, obsessed with meeting the people who catch the fish, pick the pears, churn the butter or boil the bagels that we eat.
All photos Š Clay Williams
All photos Š Clay Williams
All photos Š Clay Williams
ON TV
Arts from the Orensanz “Orensanz 2008: The Far Reaches of Space”
TV PROGRAM GUIDE MNN - CHANNEL 67 Tuesdays, November 22, November 30, December 6 7:30PM During the upcoming weeks in the Arts from the Orensanz program on Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Time-Warner Channel 67, at 7:30pm, a series of documentary films about Angel Orensanz’s indoor and outdoor installations exploring space are scheduled for broadcasting. The documentary footages of Flying in Nasa’s Lab (2004) installation at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, and The Steppes of Mars (2005) atthe ABC playground, on the corner of Houston and Essex Streets became part of the art event “Orensanz 2008: The Far Reaches of Space”. Read more about these works in our “Hot from the Archives” section. You can also watch a short interview with Angel Orensanz that was broadcast by the Hispanic Channel (HITN) in 2004 by clicking here.
Angel Orensanz’s “Flying in Nasa’s Lab” (2004) © Klara Palotai
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