Cultural Conversations

hanrahan Meyers architects Likes "Amazing Timelapse of a 30-story Building Constructed in Only 360 Hours!"

Repost from Gizmodo:

 

hanrahan Meyers architects recommends: 'The Fabric of the Cosmos'

Brian Greene (pictured) in an scene from the PBS series "The Fabric of the Cosmos"

PBS is showing episodes hosted by physicist Brian Greene.  Professor Greene teaches mathematics and physics at Columbia University, and is also a best-selling author of several books, including 'The Hidden Reality:  Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos', published in 2011. 

hMa's work makes several references to science and mathematics, and we hail Dr. Greene for bringing these materials to the public in a very profoundly readable format.  The PBS episodes are fantastic, and we plan to purchase downloads for our i-Pads!

Click here to visit The Fabric of the Cosmos page on PBS.org

Infinity Chapel by hanrahan Meyers architects, developed in conversation about infinity, hypercubes, time, and light click here to view all images of Infinity Chapel on www.hanrahanmeyers.com

hMa Recommends NYT: "The Fluid Human Dance That Is Grand Central" (re-post)Cultural Conversations with hanrahanMeyers architects

Between 8:30 and 10 a.m., enough people stand still, some in groups, to make the floor of the Grand Central Terminal look like an Italian piazza photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Excerpt from the article:

By ALASTAIR MACAULAY
Published: August 31, 2011

"Every city has its own choreography, formal or informal. The composer John Cage loved to point out how any street corner is theater of a kind; the dance critic and poet Edwin Denby wrote ardently of how daily life was full of things to see; and when one of Merce Cunningham’s dancers asked what a piece was about, he took her to the window, showed her the view of the sidewalk and said, “That.”

To observe large numbers of people moving and coexisting in complex simultaneity, I chose to make two visits to Grand Central Terminal in August. Its main concourse is among the city’s spectacular locales, giving you the chance to observe the complex patterns made by arriving and departing passengers. Its vast, tall rectangular block of space is framed by high windows, a ceiling embellished with constellations, and double staircases at either end. With its many arches leading to other parts of the station and its central, four-faced clock, it is more than the sum of its exits and entrances: it adds heroic drama to the very thought of travel."

Click here to read the full article on www.nytimes.com

STATIONS LOST | 3 week run of TONY FITZPATRICK's play at The BOILER Cultural Conversations with hanrahan Meyers architects

Pierogi  Gallery presents:
Tony Fitzpatrick's STATIONS LOST at The BOILER
October 20 through November 6, 2011
Performance Schedule: Thurs & Fri 8pm; Sat, two performances 6 & 9pm; Sun 7pm
Get your tickets now!

Tony and Stan took a journey to find the dark heart of America. Stan went to Cleveland.
Tony took a detour...to Istanbul. This is their story.

From America’s border-towns to Istanbul’s Taksim Square, Station’s Lost is the story of two friends, Tony Fitzpatrick and Stan Klein, and their commonalities and divergent paths in an ever-expanding world. Tony takes us through his childhood as a rebellious Catholic schoolboy obsessed with superheroes, reading MAD Magazine, and meeting Chester Gould through his adult understanding of the superhero mythos that leads him to strike out in search of the everyday superhero in the world via a journey to Istanbul.

Tony is a visual artist, poet, actor, playwright, and raconteur—a modern-day Renaissance man. This is his second play, following "This Train," and features Tony and his sidekick Stan Klein, with live musical accompaniment. Adapted and directed by Ann Filmer.

This will be a three-week run of Tony's second theatrical performance
with five performances per week (Thursday through Sunday) beginning October 20
following his recent successful run at Chicago's Steppenwolf Garage Theatre
For tickets contact Pierogi at 718.599.2144 / info@pierogi2000.com
Location:  The BOILER  191 N. 14th St. Brooklyn, NY 11211

hMa Recommends NYT : A Master of the Stone Wall Discusses the Perfect Fit

photo of Andrew Pighills: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"Andrew Pighills has devoted much of his life to stone walls. He began building them as a boy, on his father’s farm in the Yorkshire Dales, in north England. Now, at 56, he is the North American representative of the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain, a group dedicated to the art and preservation of dry laid stone.

“A dry stone wall is a wall built without mortar,” he said. Unlike a mortared wall, which those in his profession refer to as a “wet wall,” he said, “only two things hold a dry stone wall together: gravity and friction.”

Mr. Pighills, who lives in southeast Connecticut, creates landscapes of garden and stone for private and public clients and teaches walling at workshops throughout New England. We spoke with him about his work.

Why did you start building stone walls?

I am the son of a farmer, and I had to build walls to retain the stock on the property. And having had to do it, I found that not only was I good at it, but I also enjoyed it.

What brought you to this country?

I came over to visit a friend, literally for a couple of weeks, and he said, “Oh, no, you should stay at least a month or more.” So I asked him if he knew anybody who might like some stonework done, to pay my way, and he put me through to a gentleman who had quite a large property. I did maybe a week’s work for him. He invited me back the following year to repair all the walls on his property, and while I was there I met my now-wife and eventually moved over here to live full time.

You hold workshops in New England, where there are lots of stone walls. Why is that?

The original walls were nothing more than a heap of stone that was cleared from the land so farmers could plant; they’re what I call clearance walls. Then they became boundaries. Farmers would build a little better than clearance walls to retain the stock, and then, as farming became more profitable and farmers had a little more time — it was probably second or third generation before they got to this stage — they started building actual walls. If you walk through the woods in New England, you will see all three types.

Click here to read the article in full on nytimes.com

 

Below are two views of hMa's Holley House in Garrison, New York, which incorporates an existing dry stone wall into its minimalist tableau.  The house design features two stone landscape walls that grow out of the ground plane.  To either side of this three-dimensional occupied wall, pavilions project into the landscape.  The house is designed as an atmosphere of nature:  the ancient stone wall in the landscape becomes a centering device for dwelling.

Holley House, photo by Michael Moran

stone wall at Holley House click here to see more photos of Holley House on hanrahanmeyers.com

Giant Redwood, California: Collage by Victoria Meyers

Giant Redwood, Ca., collaged 4x6 photographs

hanrahan Meyers architects recommends: Mastering the Polka Dot - Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama 'The Moment of Regeneration', 2004

The following is an article orginally published in the Wall Street Journal

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has lived in a Tokyo psychiatric hospital for decades, shuttling between there and a fully functioning studio nearby. But the artist, still busy at age 82, also happens to command some of the highest auction prices for a living female artist.

Inspired by American painter Georgia O'Keeffe, Ms. Kusama made her way to New York City in the mid-1950s. By the early 1960s, she had completed what many critics and collectors regard as her most important work—large, predominantly white "Infinity Net" oil paintings, covered with a seemingly endless array of small circular shapes.

These New York paintings anchor a major new retrospective of Ms. Kusama's diverse six-decade career. The show, which opened last month at Madrid's Museo Reina Sofia, runs through Sept. 12. A version will travel to Paris's Centre Pompidou in the fall. Then, in January 2012, it's on to London's Tate Modern gallery (which organized the show), and finally to the Whitney Museum of American Art in June 2012.

The show's 150 works reflect Ms. Kusama's particular range. Using motifs pioneered in the "Infinity Net" period, she went on to make related sculptures, films and performances. She returned to Japan in 1973. In the past decade, she has become known for outdoor sculptures and huge, ambitious installations, often featuring colorful polka dots. Five of these installations are on view in Madrid.

"The New York period is key," says Frances Morris, the Tate curator who has overseen the show. She has also tried to bring attention to Ms. Kusama's art before she arrived in the U.S. These colorful, hallucinatory works on paper, which preview her trademark use of obsessive imagery, are mostly from Japanese collections.

Top prices for Ms. Kusama's work are for paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. A 1959 "Infinity Net" painting, "No. 2," sold for almost $6 million at Christie's in New York in the recession-darkened days of fall 2008, $2 million more than its high estimate.

Buyers are beginning to show more interest in other works by Ms. Kusama, says Koji Inoue, a New York-based specialist in postwar and contemporary art at Christie's. Earlier this month at Christie's New York, a mixed-media ensemble of objects, featuring six life-size painted mannequins, sold for $1,022,500, far more than its presale estimate of $300,000 to $500,000.

Until recently, fully realized installations tended to pass to public institutions rather than to private collectors, who often lack both the space and the technical ability to maintain this kind of art. But that's changed since the recession, says Tim Marlow, director of exhibitions at London's White Cube gallery. Museums "have been squeezed," while "private institutions and collectors are significantly more able now" to accommodate works like Ms. Kusama's installations.

—J.S. Marcus

Rie Nakajima at Diapason Gallery: Wednesday June 15, 7-9pm

Rie Nakajima performing a piece in Florence (link to article)

(bio) Rie Nakajima is a japanese artist based in London, working with installations and performances that produce sound.  Her works are most often composed in direct response to unique architectural spaces using a combination of audio materials and found objects.

In the residency, by using the gallery environment, she develops her current research on the space materialization with sound.

Wednesday, June 15, 7-9pm
free

New address:
220 36th Street
between 3rd and 2nd Avenues
Studio #407 (4th floor, all the way to the back)
Brooklyn, NY 11232
info: 646-286-3367
http://diapasongallery.org/

N, R or D train to 36th Street (Brooklyn)
walk towards the elevated highway
JUST 2 STOPS INTO BROOKLYN!!!


Come enjoy the view, drink some wine or beer, and meet Rie Nakajima, who will present a "work in progress" sound installation.

hanrahan Meyers architects likes: "Howl Festival 2011" - City as Urban Theater

Allen Ginsberg reading his poems to the crowd in Washington Square Park in 1966: Photo by Jack Manning / The New York Times

For more than a century, the East Village has been home to poets, jazz musicians, Vaudeville and Yiddish theatre, artists represented by blue chip galleries and those painting in the subways, rock stars, and performance artists. Building on this tradition and inspired by long time East Village resident Allen Ginsberg's epic poem, the HOWL! Festival was founded in 2003. The mission of HOWL! Festival is to honor, develop, create and produce. With an estimated 100,000 visitors last year, the many performances celebrate local cultural icons and lionize, preserve, and advance the art, history, culture, and counterculture unique to the East Village and Lower East Side.  (from www.howlfestival.com)

The most recent Howl Festival took place last weekend June 3 - 5th.  More photos and information on the festival can be found here and here.

 

hanrahan Meyers architects Likes: "Parks to Parking Lots: All the City's a Stage" - City as Urban Theater

Photo: Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Excerpt from "Parks to Parking Lots: All the City’s a Stage"  from www.nytimes.com

By: Stephen McElroy

“Don’t I have a nice theater?” Stephen Burdman asked as he stood in a green field in Central Park near West 103rd Street on a recent Saturday afternoon. During a rehearsal break he was pointing out sites used in past productions by his company, New York Classical Theater.
Enlarge This Image

“This was the heath in ‘Lear,’ ” he said, and then, “This was the forest of letters in ‘As You Like It.’ ” Ten minutes later Mr. Burdman, along with cast and staff members working on Molière’s “School for Husbands,” were huddled under a tree during a downpour.

So it goes for providers of outdoor entertainment.

Clouds loomed over Riverside Park in Manhattan the next day, but the stars were better aligned for the cast of this month’s Hudson Warehouse production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” The weather was chilly but dry as the company rehearsed, and though every so often a dog and its walker traipsed across what stood for the stage, things went smoothly.

New York Classical and Hudson Warehouse are among a number of companies preparing free outdoor productions of classic plays — mostly Shakespeare — for performance this summer in parks from Inwood to the Battery in Manhattan, and in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, too. The smaller companies may find themselves competing for attention not just with the Public Theater’s shows at the Delacorte in Central Park, but also with the Royal Shakespeare Company, presenting a five-play repertory at the Park Avenue Armory (where tickets are decidedly not free) as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.

“I try to think of it as a fantastic boon that there is continued interest in exploring Shakespeare’s work,” said Hamilton Clancy, artistic director of the Drilling Company, which offers Shakespeare in the Parking Lot (literally) on the Lower East Side.

Some other artistic directors had a similarly glass-half-full view of the crowded theatrical field. “Good theater benefits all theater,” said Judith Jarosz, a producing artistic director (with David Fuller) of Theater 2020. “If somebody on the Upper East Side goes to the Armory and has a positive experience, it’s all the more possible they’ll go to the park and see something else.”

Jason Marr’s feelings about the Royal Shakespeare Company’s coming to New York from Britain are a bit more complicated.

“To be honest, as a theater artist, I’m always left feeling very torn about the projects that are of this scope and scale,” said Mr. Marr, the artistic director of Hip to Hip, a Queens company. He acknowledged wanting to see some of that company’s shows himself, “but at the end of the day, I feel that they’re preaching to the choir,” he said. “Sometimes these sorts of projects are for the culturally elite.”

Mr. Marr’s mission, similar to those of several artistic directors interviewed recently, is inspired by Joseph Papp, who started presenting Shakespeare more than 50 years ago and saw his work as anything but elitist.

“I always felt that we should travel,” Papp is quoted as saying in “Free for All,” the 2009 book that provides a history of the Public Theater through interviews with Papp and others. “I wanted to bring Shakespeare to the people, that was the whole idea. I had to reach the thousands of people who lived and died in their neighborhoods.”

But today it can be tough to get even a free ticket to the Public’s summer shows at the Delacorte. Fortunately, though, for those in New York, enthusiasts of the classics can try to check out the productions of the Public and the Royal Shakespeare Company, but can also find plenty of free alternatives, including an all-female “Henry V,” one of at least three productions of that play (another involves a boat ride to Governors Island).

Click here to read the full article on www.nytimes.com