Dark rooms seem to be a theme this First Friday, but they are all so different. And oh, so trippy.The Kolva-Sullivan Gallery is hosting a couple of artists looking to alter viewers’ realities by blocking out light. “Vault” by Kelsey Brewer is an intimate, pitch black void housed within a domed structure. Inside, somatically connective technologies guide and support you to engage with an interior aspect of yourself and describe it in sensory terms. Synesthetic technologies including touch-based sound and sound-based sight that interact with you directly to change, complicate and confuse your normal perception of your senses.
STAG: The Illicit Origins of Pornographic Film is comprehensive and rousing. The show covers not only a detailed history on the age of stags (1908 until 1968) for the unfamiliar, but also offers a chance to reflect on what stags did wrong, right, and everything in that seductive gray area in-between. I had a conversation with the guest-curator of the show, Kelsey Brewer, that ranged from the history of stags and film censorship to the JFK assassination.
…the exhibition follows an anthropological path. Well-written companion texts highlight the origin of the term “stag,” the amateur and often anonymous directors whose films shadowed the early 20th-century commercial film industry, the evolution and disappearance of narrative elements in porn in the 1950s, and the scenarios that form the rough foundation on which later adult films were built. It’s not about aesthetics per se, but rather the gritty DIY aspect of these flicks…
New York-based visual artist KS Brewer has also centered her recent work around the concept of trauma. Her recent installation curated by Gabrielle Aruta at her space Filo Sofi Arts, Doubled Up In Your Image, uses sculpture, video, painting, sound and scent to manifest internalized traumas that are both personal to her but also vague enough to tap into the collective unconscious of her viewers. “I want this to be a space where people bring their personal associations and be something that can apply to people in their own lives,” says Brewer.
An immersive, interactive video sculpture installation, ‘Doubled Up in Your Image’ by KS Brewer is a cathartic investigation into the depths of trauma & desire — suggesting that through a gradual process of acknowledgement and validation, we can empower ourselves in exorcising our personal demons. On view at Filo Sofi Arts through October 21st.
A guest book was made available to visitors during the exhibition of Doubled Up in Your Image. Several chose to share details of their experience - this small compilation acts as evidence of the installation’s impact.
KS Brewer’s new installation, deemed a “post-traumatic impression of a bedroom,” features elements like strange sounds and a burnt-looking bed that has a concealed cavity to duck into, where an “uplifting” multimedia experience can be found. It encompasses both the mental distortions that trauma brings and a chance to escape them.
Ian Schrager, of Studio 54 fame, opened Public Hotel to make “cool things, sophisticated things, available to everybody,” he told Forbes. So far, the hotel has lived up to its reputation, with a truly diverse body of events, from Claudia Schiffer’s book launch to curator Brooke Wise, sister of carb-friendly artist Chloe Wise, and her crew of friends who’ve created, in the words of Office Magazine, “spooky, funny, and super fucked-up” films for Wise’s Aloha From Hell festival.
When it comes to the PUBLIC, there nights to go for the party, but there are also nights to go for the popcorn. This week, at PUBLIC Arts,that was the Aloha From Hell Film Festival, curated byBrooke Wise.
The project included an interesting (and impressive) array of artists— Wise's friends from across fashion, art, music, multi-media... The selected shorts offered the best balance of spooky, funny, and super fucked-up.
@GirlSeesArt has a pop-up group show called "Uncommon Beauty" opening on September 28, 6 to 10 p.m., at 208 Bowery. On view until October 12, the exhibition features nine artists that look at "subjective beauty ideals" via various media. The first 100 visitors get a signed print by Lara Minerva and a tote bag. This is the first show curated by the popular Instagram blog.
Do you ever just spend large swaths of time sitting around and thinking about all the things you could be achieving and doing and having but currently lack? Ha ha yeah, me neither. Anyway, if you find some familiarity in that feeling of longing perhaps you’d be wise to check out Kelsey S. Brewer’s Hungry, a multimedia installation made in collaboration with Jeremy Penn that explores desire and all of its tangles.
There are many ways to express the sublime frustration that comes with wanting something you know you cannot have, or at least cannot have now. Fittingly, the artistic mediums in this show reflect that: there is film, sculpture, text, vintage erotica, performance, and more. There will also be mirrors strewn throughout the space, so you can take a nice good look at yourself and all you don’t have.
On Saturday night, Ventiko’s pet peacock, Dexter, was the last to arrive because his Uber driver missed the correct pick-up point — she regularly transports him via Uber, or by subway on a leash. The “WWW III” installations featured outdated Dell computer screens and stairwells laced with discarded electrical cords. Projectors played a mesmerizing preview of a video to be released in full later this week, titled Hungry, of Ventiko devouring a chocolate human-shaped sculpture.
Sylva Dean and Me will perform this Wednesday, July 26, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City. The full release of Kelsey Brewer’s Hungry will show July 27–29 at Fat Free Art on the Lower East Side.
At approximately 7 p.m. on Saturday evening joyful, live piano music carried its way from a side street near the Wilson L subway stop. While neighborhood residents sat out on their stoops and in lawn chairs on the sidewalk in an effort to soak up the final rays of the day, traveling musician Adam Lozoya happily played a big white and gold upright piano with candelabras protruding from the front. He sat perched behind the keys while making melodies outside of Unruly Collective's big brick building on Cooper Street. The music kept guests entertained as they waited patiently on the steps to enter the space and witness "www III," a curated show by multimedia artist Ventiko.
A short and distressing trailer draws curiosity about the digital dystopias to be witnessed... ticket holders will navigate a strange space in hopes of better understanding, as Ventiko puts it, "how we influence the internet and how collectively we are taking ourselves to the brink."
On Sunday afternoon, 18 artists gathered on the northwest corner of Bowery and Houston Streets to protest the multimillionaire street artist David Choe, who has been given the prominent Bowery Mural as a canvas and whose mural was recently whitewashed over by an unknown source.
From Taos, to Bellingham, to Richmond to New York City, Open House corralled some of the most interesting contemporary emerging artists of 2017. They were kind enough to share with us some of their secrets to navigating the powerful social media path and their insights on how they use social media. Along the way they put some of our mounting suspicions to rest, discussing the make-or-break reaction to likes, and what kind of benefits they are really seeking–and getting–from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.It is safe to say a few things are certain and that while not everyone needs the help of the internet to survive in the art world, it does seem that most believe it is a valuable tool. From researching artists to posting homemade cat gifs, these artists are not only creative with their posting, but also personal. In the age of social media, where all images, as Jake Reller says “are not fit for mass consumption,” perhaps it is this personal touch that keeps us interested in what these photos on small screens have to offer.
