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Something New & Strange at the Tiny Box Theater

December 6, 2019 / Long Island City Neighborhood / Theater in Queens NYC / Queens Buzz NYC.

This weekend only, there's the performance of an avante garde theatrical production entitled The House We Never Lived In at the Tiny Box Theater which is performing at the 11th Street Arts Center in Long Island City Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

The production is something totally interactive, meaning we were guided through the play by our hosts - CoDirectors Joy Tomasko and Sarah Murphy - but each of us embarked on our own unique journey wearing headsets and making choices which would ultimately determine how the play ended ... for us ... alone ... or shared - but only shared if others had made the same choices that we did. If you're not totally understanding this, that's ok, because until it was over, neither did I.

The photo at right shows several members of the audience in the foreground, pursuing their own journey in the play, while the Co-Directors, Joy Tomasko at left and Sarah Murphy at right in the background, look on.

The play takes us on a journey from a tiny apartment in NYC, to purchasing a fixer upper home upstate, and then going there ...

You will need a fully charged cell phone to attend the play, as that will be plugged into your headset which they provide. The cell phone is then used to scan the recordings you'll hear, which are chosen based upon the choices you make, which you then use as a guide - along with the assistance of the Co-Directors, into a world that is new and strange.

The play is well written [or at least based on the choices I made], containing a number of near poetic insights, and the experience is reality ... virtually ... ? ... dunno ... as I'm still processing it.

This weekend only - performances at 4.30 pm, 6 pm, 7.30 and 9 pm on Friday and at 3 pm, 4.30 pm and 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets cost $20 and you can purchase them at www.tinyboxtheater.com. And remember to bring a fully charged cell phone.

Seating is very limited, so if you want to see this play, waiting isn't an option. This play was funded in part through a grant from the Queens Council on the Arts.

Jamaica Just My Style Fashion Show

JJMS Runway Hits ... Delight the Audience Again

June 19, 2018 / Jamaica Neighborhood / Fashion in Queens / Queens Buzz NYC.

I attended the Jamaica Just My Style Fashion Show last Friday at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens. The show highlights some of the great shopping opportunities in downtown Jamaica as it is organized and hosted by the Jamaica Center Business Improvement District [BID].

In the lobby there was food and shopping opportunities, and in the auditorium there was a show not to be missed, featuring the clothing and designs offerred by about a dozen downtown Jamaica retailers which are listed at the end of the video below, along with the Jamaica Center sponsors.

There wasn't any multi-media going on in the background as in previous years, which at first I thought might be a liability. But I found instead, that I soon lost myself in an undistracted focus on the models and the clothing coming down the runway.

There were also about a dozen and a half models, about two thirds of which were female, and all of whom did a great job of keeping our attention on their sculpted forms, theatrical poses and dancer flair. Click the video below to feast your eyes on fashion, form and function and a bit of show biz, provided by rapper Roxanne Chante. A photo of entertainer Destiny Johnson is also included at the end of the video.

Break a leg.

Jamaica Just My Style Fashion Show Preview

June 12, 2018 / Jamaica Neighborhood / Queens Fashion NYC / Queens Buzz NYC.

I traveled down to Jamaica town on Tuesday afternoon to see a short preview of the upcoming Jamaica Just My Style Fashion Show. The show is organized by the Jamaica Center BID and Executive Director Whitney Barrat was on hand to talk about the upcoming show. The gracious Barrat talked about the vibrancy of the downtown Jamaica business district, the excitement of the upcoming show, and commended Jamaica Center BID Associate Valerie Stevens for her efforts in organizing the event. The designs by Michele Walden Mcphee were alluring, complementing the models' shapely figures in an artistic display of finely chosen fabric.

The show begins at 6 pm Friday at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center on Jamaica Avenue at 153rd Street. There will be food, music and plenty of fashion not just on the stage but in the crowd as well. It's free but you must rsvp at the Jamaica Center BID website - using the link below.

CLICK - Jamaica Just My Style Fashion Show Friday, June 15 at 6 pm to rsvp for a free ticket.

PS1 Art Museum, Noguchi Museum & Art Scene in Long Island City Queens - Multiple Reports

PS1 Art Museum, Noguchi Museum & Art Scene in Long Island City Queens - Special Section with multiple reports over multiple years.

Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria Queens - Multiple Reports

Museum of the Moving Image Astoria Queens - Special Section with multiple reports over multiple years.

Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park Queens - Multiple Reports

Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park Queens - Special Section with multiple reports over multiple years.

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in LIC Queens - Multiple Reports

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in LIC Queens - Special Section with multiple reports over multiple years.

'Damn I Look Good'

Art Exhibit At Topaz Arts In Woodside

November 17, 2014 / Woodside Neighborhood / Art In Queens / Queens Buzz. On Wednesday I attended a performance of the Theater of the Oppressed NYC at Topaz Arts in Woodside. The performance is one of a number of artistic and theatrical programs organized in conjunction with a year long effort entitled, Beyond Sacred: Unthinking Muslim Identity, by the LaGuardia College Performing Arts Center.

On exhibit at Topaz Arts was a related art exhibit entitled Beauty, created by Qinza Najm of Manhattan. Qinza's work included a couple of oil on canvas paintings and a video, a photo still of which, you can see in the photo to your right. The intent of the art project was to challenge people's perceptions about Islam and Islamic garb.

The 911 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center killed 2,977 people and irreversibly changed the lives of the countless more who loved them. It also created a negative perception of all Muslims in the public eye, and hence also changed the lives for many millions of Muslims living in America who had nothing at all to do with 911. It's estimated that between five and ten million Muslims live in the U.S. - of which a third are believed to be from Africa, another third from southern and eastern Asia, and the remaining third from the Middle East. Is it estimated that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, representing nearly a quarter of the world population.

Qinza's video has her wearing a black burqa in public places in New York City taking selfies [photos of herself as shown in the photo above]. The burqa has enscribed on it a Twitter hash tag followed by the art project name '#DamnILookGood'. The video includes Qinza's artistic statement that this is America and people of all cultures are free to wear what they want. In her video Qinza approaches people to try to get them to wear Islamic clothing for just a few minutes in public places in order to sensitize them to the current prejudicial feelings against them which is manifested through people's reaction to them while wearing traditional Islamic clothing. The burqa is the most conservative Muslim garb worn by Muslim women and is part of the ancient Islamic tradition of women completely covering their entire bodies when out in public.

We'll have more on this art exhibit and the Theater of the Oppressed at a later time.

Grand Central Atelier: Artists in our Midst

Classical Drawing, Painting & Sculpture Studios Participate in LICAO

May 23, 2016 / LIC Neighborhood / Arts in Queens / Queens Buzz.

The 6th Annual LIC Arts Open [LICAO] ended yesterday evening. While the weather on Saturday was mixed, Sunday seemed to make up for it. The mission of the LICAO program is to provide a venue for local artists to showcase their studios and works.

A local writer and playwright, Joy Tomasko, has been involved with the Grand Central Atelier for a number of years. I first met her while attending a performance of a theatrical production of hers at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, where she was the Playwright in Residence at the time.

I found the play, entitled Surrender, to be deeply philosophical. It was an audience interactive production, which took us on a multi-dimensional journey - so when Joy announced she was doing an interactive art exhibit at Grand Central Atelier during the LIC Arts Open Weekend - I decided to check it out.

In the photo at right are sculptors at Grand Central Atelier creating a bust of an unknown man, who thousands of years from now, will become famous by virtue of the plentitude of busts depicting his personage.

We'll have more on this event later this summer.

Queens Museum Winter Exhibits

An Artistic Mix of Media & Subjects

February 15, 2016 / Flushing Neighborhood / Queens Art Museums / Queens Buzz. The Queens Museum has several exhibits that will end this month. I went to see them because I had heard about how interesting they were. One is the music of the cosmos, some time after the Big Bang, being played on a Steinway piano. Another links into the map of the city of New York made for the 1964 World's Fair, by using rendering video images to connect the artist's real video of her apartment to the real video of the map in the Queens Museum. And there's a moving work by an African American artist who spent some time in her childhood living in a homeless shelter. She did a mixed media installation that includes video, newspaper clippings and replicas of the limited possessions one in that situation can hold onto.

The last one I toured through was by a Chinese born American artist who captures the iconic force of Mao Zedong [1893 - 1976]. Mao led an insurgency against the ruling class in China around the time of WWII. He eventually succeeded in taking power from them and ruled China from 1945 until he died in 1976. In 1972 Mao welcomed Richard Nixon to China is what was the beginning of a long transition from Communism to the mix of capitalism and Communism we see today.

Anyhow the artist found Mao's presence to be ubiquitous and he creatively emblazoned the feeling of Mao's presence on a number of artistic works in his installation which ranged from a ping pong table [part of the Mao / Nixon diplomatic outreach], to a video installation of a fashion show, to everyday items. We hope to follow up at a later date with a longer report about these exhibits at the Queens Museum - ending on February 28th.

Sunnyside Artists Work Their Craft

November 10, 2015 / Sunnyside Neighborhood / Sunnyside Shopping / Queens Buzz.

Sunnyside Artists, a local arts group, organized a crafts fair at the Queen of Angels Church on Skillman Avenue. There were just shy of 40 artists and crafts(wo)men with booths at the show. I arrived late afternoon as things were winding down and had a chance to talk to the folks about their work.

There were folks there selling all kinds of orginal works and handmade crafts. For example a seamstress who made cloth dolls that would give Raggedy Ann a run for the money. Handmade purses that would make even Gianni Versace envious. florists whose artistic breadth knew no bounds. Handmade wooden trains that Gepetto [Pinocchio's father] would buy for his son. Illustrators whose work is on a par with that of Spiderman creator Stan Lee. Photographic works that make Rembrandts out of local scenes. And ceramics that would have made the Grecian potters stand in awe. And all on sale for a mere pittance of their worth.

Click here to enter the entertaining world of the Sunnyside Artists Crafts Fair via a video time warp.

Sunnyside Artists: Queen of Angels Art Fair

Local Artists In Sunnyside Area Show & Sell

June 8, 2015 / Sunnyside Neighborhood / Artists in Queens / Queens Buzz.

It was a beautiful sunny day as I made my way down to the Queen of Angels Fine Art Fair in Sunnyside. The Queen of Angels Fine Art Fair is in its eighth year, the first of which started in 2008.

The fair showcases local artists in a festive atmosphere where neighborhood folks are welcome to browse and buy at their option.

A number of donations were made by local businesses in support of Sunnyside Artists and the Queen of Angels Art Fair. Some were used as raffle prizes, including the famous purse & slippers cake created by the Sugar Room pastry chef Juan Arache who is an artisan and artist too, using sweet edibles as his medium.

It's a communal gathering of sorts as there's food each year accompanied by wine provided by Lowerys Wine & Liquors.

And this year Manny Gomez and company served the food & wine.

In the photo above is Ms. Hetzel at the Queen of Angels Art Fair.

Astoria Music Now

Astoria Arts & Music Hosts 7th Annual Astoria Musical Festival

September 16, 2015 / Astoria Neighborhood / Live Music Queens / Queens Buzz.

On Saturday, August 29th I headed over to Astoria Park to attend the 7th Annual Astoria Music Now music festival. It was a near perfect day with the temperatures in the 80's, plenty of sun and not too much humidity.

There were three stages on the Great Lawn - one at the top of the hill, a second one near the foot of one of the towers of Hell Gate Bridge and the third along the East River along the western perimter of the Great Lawn. In this manner one could choose from three performances, and once chosen, listen out of earshot of the other two stages.

Before I settled in to listen to the music I decided to take a walk along the waterfront there were a number of art galleries / exhibits in tents lining the waterfront.

Click here to read the rest of the story, view photos and a video of Astoria Music Now.

The Dorsky Gallery

New Ways of Seeing: Beyond Culture

May 11, 2015 / LIC Neighborhood / Art Exhibits in Queens / Queens Buzz.

I met Cui Fei at the Queens Museum in 2008 at an art show entitled Reasons Clue [use the search box above to find it]. Cui is an artist who was born in Shandong province in mainland China, and she moved here nearly two decades ago. Shandong province is located along the East China Sea and, for those who drink beer, it's worth noting that Shandong is home to Tsingtao beer. Cui is one of twenty artists who have work on exhibit at the Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs in Long Island City.

And so it was, with Cui Fei's invitation in hand, that I headed to the Dorsky Gallery on a hot sunny afternoon in May. As I arrived at the gallery there were folks milling about outside, discussing the artwork inside. The show was the brain child of two NYC metro curators, Jan Castro and Eileen Jeng. Eileen said the two curators had met at an art event in Brooklyn within the past couple years, and that they hit it off right from the start. There was an immediate connection and the two had agreed to find some way to collaborate on a project.

Inside the gallery things were buzzing. Some measure of the art world was there, engaged in creative conversation. It was nice to see Cui again, and in only a few minutes we were able to pick up a conversation we'd vacated many years ago. In Reasons Clue Cui had found and presented a number of grape vines that had grown into interesting shapes that in some manner resembled the characters of the Chinese alphabet. At the time she was working on a theme entitled Manuscript of Nature. She had told me that the grapevines she had selected carried messages from nature. It was Mother's Day, and as I began writing this piece, I began to think about Mother Nature and how tired she must be fending off those who don't respect her. Cui Fei's work was intended to help us listen.

Cui went on to say that she is now working on a theme is entitled Tracing The Origins. She told me that the Chinese characters were once representations of things in nature. Pictograms. Cui went on to say that the symbols which once looked like what they represented, became detached from what they first represented, and over time they became abstracted to carry meanings which were completely different than what they first represented. Today one cannot determine the origins of the Chinese characters.

As Cui was telling me this I thought about how the same process had happened in western art beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The French impressionists began to abstract what they saw, and by capturing and depicting light in a certain way, they conveyed a feeling that left an impression. Claude Monet, one of the first and finest impressionist painters, was followed by Dutch painter Van Gogh who continued in the impressionist tradition, but took the art a step further by infusing his works with thick vivid paint that conveyed great emotion. A few decades later Spanish artist Pablo Picasso painted his most celebrated work, Guernica, which continued the abstraction by providing what one might compare to an abstract pictogram of the Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in modern day Spain. And following World War II, all hell broke loose in America, where the abstraction became complete. American artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko and a personal favorite of mine which still hangs at MoMA, Vir Heroicus Sublimas, was painted by Barnett Newman.

I bent down to take a closer look at Cui Fei's sand paintings on the floor ...

We'll continue reporting on the Dorsky at a later date, including a bit of background on the Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs in LIC.

Caught In The Act - The 13 Most Wanted

Queens Museum Opens Incredible Art Exhibit Grounded In History

April 28, 2014 / Flushing Neighborhood / Art In Queens / Queens Buzz.

I visited the Queens Museum [they dropped 'of Art' from the name] this past weekend to view their new exhibit - The 13 Most Wanted Men.

The exhibit is a tie into the 50th anniversary of the opening of the 1964 World's Fair and the preservation of the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Andy Warhol was one of several celebrity artists of the day, invited to create an artwork to post on the wall of the Theaterama [now Queens Theatre In The Park] which was one of the structures of the New York State Pavilion. It was a real honor as the work would be seen by tens and likely hundreds of thousands who would pass by it during the 1964 World's Fair.

Warhol decided to post the mug shots of the 13 Most Wanted Men in America. One can never know exactly what he was thinking, but it was an artwork designed to get people's attention, shock them and get them to think, perhaps a bit differently, about some of the things going on at the time.

The powers-that-be decided having 13 large mug shots of thirteen criminals in the midst of a fun family fair wasn't a good idea. So they whitewashed it off the building [sound familiar? - see our story about the Whitewash art exhibit in LIC]. This is the quick and dirty report of what happened, which the Queens Museum in a collaboration with the Warhol Museum of Pittsburgh, did an incredible job of presenting in an exhibit which is both art and history.

In the photo above is Curator, Larissa Harris, and Director of External Affairs, David Strauss. David is also one of the troika managing the Queens Museum while they search for a replacement for former Executive Director, Tom Finkelpearl. Tom was recently appointed New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner.

We'll post our full report at a later date.

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Art Exhibits & Galleries In Astoria / LIC

Museum of the Moving Image - Animation

Museum Of The Moving Image - Performance Art / post renovations

Ming Wong At Museum of Moving Image

Noguchi Museum in Queens

Cultural Association of the Molise Region - Tony Vaccaro photos

Queens Art Express 2011

Socrates Sculpture Park

Museum of the Moving Image - Short Description / pre-renovations

Andy Warhol film at Museum of the Moving Image Astoria 2008

Art Exhibits & Galleries In Flushing & Corona

Boo Spooktacular at the Queens Museum of Art - 2011

Godwin Ternbach Art Museum - Queens College

Waterpod Floating Barge in Flushing Harbor - 2009

Indian Diaspora At The Queens Museum Of Art

Art Exhibits & Galleries In Jamaica NY

Jackson Heights Arts Club

Y Gallery - gone

Art Exhibits & Galleries In Jamaica NY

Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning - JCAL

Afrikan Poetry Theatre

Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning - Early Report

Art Exhibits & Galleries In Long Island City LIC

PS1 Moma LIC Queens

LIC Artists - LICA

Richard Meier Model Museum

AGhost At LIC Space / First Fridays At LIC Space

Housebroken At Flux Factory

Queens Art Express 2011 / Queens Art Express 2009

Leopards In The Temple At Sculpture Center

PS1 Warm Up Party / History Of PS1 / PS1 Art Museum Fall Exhibits

5 Pointz aka Crane Street Studios

Art Exhibits & Galleries In Sunnyside & Woodside

Satomi Shirai - Photography Exhibit in Queens

Queen of Angels Art Fair - 2010

Topaz Arts

Queen Of Angels Art Fair - 2009

Click Queens Restaurants

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