An Animated City Council
An old saying about politics is that it is Hollywood for ugly people. But Lauri Apple, a Chicago-based artist and political writer, believes politics—or, at least, the New York City Council—is more like high school.
Read more
Not-So-Fun City
By Dan Rivoli
The most striking image of the John Lindsay exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York is a blown-up New York Times Magazine cover from 1973. The cover is a photo of Lindsay’s face that shows how events during his seven years as mayor of New York City ravaged his youthful looks: a white line connects welfare to his grayed temples; the 1969 Queens snowstorm put a crease around his mouth; the long, hot summer of 1966 deepened the frown lines on his forehead. Read more
Haute Flea
Gone are the days of roaming the flea market on Avenue A and finding vintage T-shirts, old records and the guys from Interpol sulking on a Sunday afternoon. Starting this weekend, though, there’s MARTE on 3rd, a weekend market featuring clothing from designer Jackie Hates You, customized housewares from Lightexture, snacks from Georgia’s Eastside BBQ and eTon and plenty more. (MARTE, by the way, stands for Manhattan Artisan Retail & Trade Emporiums.) Read more
DIY at the NYPL
Gathering to make crafts may seem more suited to the Midwest than to our steel and concrete city. But tell that to the dozens of henna-haired hipsters, Starbucks moms, silver tops and Michelle Obama look-alikes (and a few men) who showed up April 17 at the New York Public Library’s main branch to chat and knit, and cut and paste. According to Rare Books librarian Jessica Pigza, co-host of “Handmade Crafternoons,” these do-it-yourself salons “bring people into the library, build community and provide a space for creativity.” Read more
Meditations on Motherhood
If Hallmark has the commercial cornered on Mother’s Day, a new art exhibition, Inspired: An Exhibition in Celebration of Mothers, hopes to revitalize the holiday’s heart and soul.
Dana DiPrima, the show’s guiding force, says the concept evolved from her own tradition of sending annual Mother’s Day notes to friends and family. The cards, which have always elicited a warm response, prompted an unexpected comment last year from her artist-friend Jan Testori-Markman, who pointed out that the design was created by a male artist. Read more
A Pandora’s Box
By Shannon Geis
Before tossing an empty cigar box, Patricia Feiwel wants you to remember.
Feiwel, an Upper West Side textile artist, recently began creating framed “fabric collages” and free-standing boxes with biographic significance. She said it all started when her sister, who worked at Scholastic at the time, asked her to make a 40th birthday box for J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. Read more
Artful Fundraiser
By Samuel Chamberlain
During the summer of 2007, Upper West Sider Omri Bloch returned from the second of two six-month trips around the world. His itinerary included developing countries like Cambodia, Malawi and Zambia, an experience he said was both interesting and moving.
That fall, he combined lessons from his travels with a budding interest in photography to co-found the Nuru Project, a non-profit that holds one-night photography exhibitions and auctions to benefit various organizations in developing countries. The project has previously held fundraisers benefiting the United Nations World Food Program and the non-profit Acumen Fund. Read more
LUSTFUL VISIONS, WITH A POLITICAL EDGE
By Melissa Tuckman
It’s startling to learn that Hans Bellmer’s grotesque dolls were crafted in the heart of Nazi Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Bellmer fashioned female mannequins from his studio in Berlin. The twisted bodies had detachable limbs, which he rearranged and photographed obsessively.
Several of the doll photographs can now be seen in Octopus Time, a show of Bellmer’s work at Ubu Gallery. They are uncommonly disturbing. Legs merge into arms, joints bend into impossible positions, torsos swell with ambiguous protuberances. Human forms often merge with inanimate objects; “The Machine Gunnerress,” a photograph from 1937, shows fleshy plaster affixed to metal limbs, like an interwar Terminator. Read more
