Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner + Matthew Ritchie: Oct 31

Artist Talk with Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner, and Matthew Ritchie
October 31, 6pm
BAM: Hillman Attic Studio
$8; $4 for Friends of BAM

Brothers Bryce and Aaron Dessner of international indie rock fame The National, and British-born visual artist Matthew Ritchie, known for his kaleidoscopic, cosmological projects, have come together to introduce The Long Count. Their new collaboration will lend itself to a discussion on music, art, and genesis.
http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1264

The Long Count, Part of the 2009 Next Wave Festival, will be performed at BAM on October 28, 30 & 31 at 8pm. The stage has been designed by Matthew Ritchie and the show is a music / theater piece that merges the Mayan creation myth with Bryce and Aaron's experience growing up as twins in Cincinnati, OH during the era of the Cincinnati Reds Big Red Machine. The production consists of 70 minutes of music composed by Bryce and Aaron and played by an 11 piece ensemble as well as Bryce and Aaron. Guest vocalists Kim and Kelley Deal (The Breeders, The Pixies), Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), and Matt Berninger (The National) round out the line-up in this visionary collaboration between music and art. In addition, David Sheppard will be creating live audio loops and surround sound audio effects throughout the performance. http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1263

A bonus for Hot Art Action readers! The song "Bull Run" featuring vocals by Kelley Deal is available for free download here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ulk1bq

Sylvere Lotringer on Paul Virilio: Oct 29

Sylvere Lotringer: Paul Virilio: The Itinerary of Catastrophe
Thursday, October 29, 7pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street

Writer and cultural theorist Sylvere Lotringer will give a talk on philosopher Paul Virilio’s proposition of speed and catastrophe as the generative principle of contemporary society, following a screening of The Itinerary of Catastrophe, a filmed conversation with Virilio. Lotringer is professor emeritus at Columbia University, where he founded the influential journal Semiotext(e). He is the co-author of Pure War (Semiotext(e), 1983) and Crepuscular Dawn (Semiotext(e), 2002) and the author of Overexposed: Perverting Perversions (Semiotext(e), 2007). Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department. Free and open to the public

http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/events/index.jsp?sid0=70&page_id=181&content_id=3120

The Institute for Aesthetic Research: Oct 28+ Nov 4, 11, 18

The Institute for Aesthetic Research
Wednesdays, 6-8pm
October 21, 28 and November 4, 11, 18
Exit Art, 475 Tenth Ave

As part of America for Sale, artists Daniel Lichtman and David Baumflek will host The Institute for Aesthetic Research (IAR) - a program of public events, talks and discussions focused on Art, Economics and Institutional Critique. They will attempt to translate the traditional role of the “think tank” into the sphere of cultural production and visual art. As the traditional think tank situates itself between the academy, special interests and government, the IAR will consider how to place itself critically within the circuits of distribution and legitimization of aesthetic objects and ideas. The IAR will itself be an experiment in the dynamics of cultural-political discourse. These five weekly meetings will culminate in a collectively-produced publication that explores the possibilities of cultural production in contestation, or outside the realm of Neoliberalism. Organized by David Baumflek and Daniel Lichtman

October 28: Timothy Murray and Renate Ferro will discuss how politically-minded new media of the 1990s and early 2000s have been co-opted by advanced strategies of viral marketing on the web.

November 4: John Baldachinno will discuss art, pedagogy and politics in contemporary art practice.

November 11: Ethan Spigland will screen SHALLOW, a film he and collaborator Malcom McLaren produced. A discussion will follow.

November 18: Organizers David Baumflek and Daniel Lichtman will lead a discussion on the entries submitted by local and internet-based participants for the IAR publication. Audience members will contribute to a discussion in editing and finalizing the publication. Adam Simon will facilitate the discussion.

http://www.exitart.org/site/pub/exhibition_programs/SEA/america_for_sale.html#events

Emre Huner and Lauren Cornell: Oct 28

Emre Huner and Lauren Cornell
Wednesday, October 28, 6:30 pm
apexart, 291 Church Street

Emre Huner, current apexart resident, and Lauren Cornell, Executive Director Rhizome, will discuss utopian constructs, speculative fiction, and the juggernaut of modernism. In their conversation they will touch upon the inspirations for Huner's latest work from the New York World's Fair, to the NASA Space Program, and Walt Disney.

http://www.apexart.org/events/huner.htm

Lorna Simpson: Oct 27

Lorna Simpson
Tuesday, October 27, 7pm
Aperture Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, 4th Fl

Simpson was first known in the mid-eighties for confronting and challenging conventional views toward gender, identity, culture, history, and memory with her large-scale, formally elegant, and subtly provocative photographic and textual works. Simpson uses the image of the African-American woman to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships, and experiences of our lives in contemporary, multi-racial America. Recently, she has turned her attention to moving images; in film and video works such as Call Waiting, Simpson presents individuals engaged in intimate and enigmatic elliptical conversations that elude easy interpretation while addressing the mysteries of both identity and desire. Her newest works include figurative drawings of characters from her video works and a collection of drawings of women's heads, turned in profile to reveal their various hairstyles. Simpson is currently creating installations involving found vintage photographs accompanied by her own drawings and new photography.

Admission: Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served

http://www.newschool.edu/eventDetail.aspx?id=36458

Blind Handshake: Oct 27

Tuesday, October 27, 6:30pm
SVA, 133/141 West 21 Street, room 101C
Free and open to the public

In a panel moderated by Gloria Kury, David Humphrey, Geoff Kaplan and Molly Nesbit will discuss their collaboration on two 2009 books about contemporary art--Humphrey’s Blind Handshake and Nesbit’s Midnight, The Tempest Essays. Kury is an art historian who has taught at Yale and SVA, and is the founder and director of Periscope Publications; Humphrey is a writer and visual artist who is a recipient of the Rome Prize and a senior critic at the Yale School of Art; Kaplan is a graphic designer at the General Working Group and teaches at California College of the Arts; and Nesbit is a professor of art at Vassar College and the J. Kirk T. Varnedoe Visiting Professor of 2007 at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Presented by the BFA Visual and Critical Studies and MFA Design Criticism Departments.

http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/events/index.jsp?sid0=70&page_id=181&content_id=3118

Contemporary African Art Since 1980: Oct 27

Tuesday, October 27, 6pm
NYPL: Margaret Liebman Berger Forum (Room 227)
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street

Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu's Contemporary African Art Since 1980 is the first major survey of the work of contemporary African artists, working either in or outside of Africa. Its focus is on historical transitions: from the end of the 1960s postcolonial utopias during the 1980s to the geopolitical, economic, technological, and cultural shifts incited by globalization. Enwezor, a leading curator and scholar of contemporary art, and Okeke-Agulu, Assistant Professor of Art and Archeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, are editors of NKa Journal of Contemporary African Art.

http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/eventdesc.cfm?id=5836

Bill Viola: Oct 27

Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture: Bill Viola
Tuesday, October 27 7 pm
Whitney Museum

A pioneer in the medium of video art, Bill Viola has been instrumental in establishing video as a vital form of contemporary art. Often drawing on religious iconography and historical narratives, Viola’s work exhibits a simple and elegant beauty that exceeds the complex technology of its presentation. As he states, “It only takes an instant for an impression to become a vision.” In this fifth Annenberg Lecture, Viola will speak about his work in conversation with Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director.

Admission is free, but registration is required. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

http://www.whitney.org/www/educational_programs/public_programs.jsp

Creative Survival Skills: Oct 27

Artist at the Helm: Creative Survival Skills for Navigation
Tuesday, October 27th, 6:30 – 8pm
CUE Art Foundation, 511 West 25th Street

As the art world transforms itself, artists find they must adapt to societal changes in order to persevere. Once upon a time, one could network by walking into a gallery with a portfolio in hand or by attending exhibition openings– but today, the story is much more complex. For that reason, a guided roundtable discussion bringing together emerging and established artists and art organizers (i.e curators and media professionals) will provide a platform for sharing anecdotes and advice on surviving in this ever-changing system. While the more seasoned speakers may bring forth traditional methods, the younger participants can offer their understanding of cutting edge practice. Artists at all stages in their careers serve to benefit from first hand accounts and insights into how to promote oneself today through creative and timely means of networking and audience development. Focus will be placed on methods for resource sharing, the effectiveness of web verses “real world” strategies, and the importance of community building for the endurance of an artist’s livelihood.

Speakers include Gema Alava, Colleen Asper, Jennifer Dudley, Pablo Helguera, Paddy Johnson, Paul Laster, Trong Nguyen, Christina Ray, and Joshua Selman.

http://www.artfagcity.com/2009/10/26/art-fag-city-at-cue-foundation-tomorrow/

Branding the New Deal: Oct 26

Branding the New Deal
Monday, October 26, 7:30pm (free /by donation)
The Change You Want To See Gallery
84 Havemeyer Street, at Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn
and live-streamed at http://livestream.com/notanalternative

The Change You Want To See Gallery continues its series on Symbols, Branding and Persuasion with an exploration of branding in the context of electoral and legislative politics. The evening will start with a presentation by media theorist Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and the forthcoming Branding the New Deal. Afterward Jessica Teal, design manager for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign will join Duncombe for a conversation via video skype.

Like it or not, propaganda and mass persuasion are part of modern democratic politics. Many progressives today have an adverse reaction to propaganda: ours is a politics based in reason and rationality, not symbols and fantasy. Given our last administration’s fondness for selling fantasies as reality, this aversion to branding, marketing and propaganda is understandable. But it is also naïve. Mass persuasion is a necessary part of democratic politics, the real issue is what ethics it embodies and which values it expresses.

Looking critically at how the Roosevelt Administration tried to “brand” the New Deal and how the Obama campaign leveraged principles of marketing and advertising gives us an opportunity to think about different models of political persuasion.

Upcoming in this series:
Monday, Nov 2, 7:30pm–9:30pm: author Carrie McLaren and artist Steve Lambert
Thursday, Nov 5, 7:30-9:30pm: consultant Loid Der workshop on branding

http://thechangeyouwanttosee.com/blog/symbols-branding-and-persuasion-an-art-politics-presentation-series

An Evening with Bidoun: Oct 26

An Evening with Bidoun
Monday, October 26, 7pm
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th St
Free

This evening of texts and images, evocations and echoes draws from Bidoun's recent INTERVIEWS issue and its forthcoming NOISE issue. Created in 2004, Bidoun is dedicated to commissioning original writing on the visual arts, architecture, film, and music, as well as producing artist projects from, in, and around the Middle East region. The magazine is published in New York; edited in Dubai, Cairo, and New York; and distributed worldwide. For more information, visit www.bidoun.com.

http://www.thekitchen.org/

Artist-Led Tours of Kandinsky

Eye to Eye: Artist-Led Tours of Kandinsky
Guggenheim Museum
$25, $20 members, students

Monday, October 19 @ 6:30pm: R. Luke DuBois
Monday, November 9 @ 6:30pm: R. Luke DuBois
Monday, December 7 @ 6:30pm: Julie Mehretu
Tuesday, December 8 @ 6:30pm: assume vivid astro focus
Wednesday, December 9 @ 6:30pm: assume vivid astro focus

R. Luke DuBois is a composer, artist, and performer who explores the temporal, verbal, and visual structures of cultural and personal ephemera. His recent work is a sonic and encyclopedic relative to time-lapse photography. A practitioner of synesthesia, DuBois will relay the correspondence between painter Vasily Kandinsky and composers Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander Scriabin while inviting the audience to experience an interpretive landscape of sound. A reception follows the tour.

Celebrated for her large-scale paintings and abstract drawings, Julie Mehretu’s recent work explores the intersections of power, history, and the built environment and their impact on the formation of personal and transcommunal identities.

An evolving artist collective of nomads born anytime between the 20th and 21st centuries in various parts of the world, assume vivid astro focus (avaf) is known for creating ambitious and immersive installations that engage the architecture, culture, and history of their exhibition venues to create an enjoyably interactive art experience. Their work includes both two-dimensional and sculptural elements that often feature performance, music, dance, and video.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/adult-and-academic-programs/public-programs

What is the Good of Work?: Oct 17

Talk with Marysia Lewandowska and Peter Fleming
Saturday, October 17, 4pm
Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street (at Bowery)

What is the good of work? How and why did the future change from the sixties and seventies vision of a leisure society to an exhausting life of increasingly purposeless work? What are the implications of the shift from a Fordist model of production to a post-Fordist one? Why is work valorized in contemporary society? What happened to the critique of labor and its radical potential from the Middle Ages up through the strategies of the Situationists and others? As unemployment becomes an increasing reality, how might we think of unemployment as an artistic and philosophical category?

These questions will be examined during four events at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building in the East Village. Each event will involve two guests–one artist and one cultural producer of another kind. Marysia Lewandowska and Peter Fleming will be the guests at the first event on October 17. Wyoming Evenings is organized by the Goethe-Institut New York and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and curated by Maria Lind and Simon Critchley.

Events to follow in this series:
Saturday, December 5 (2009): Marion von Osten and Tom McCarthy
Saturday, January 30 (2010): Liam Gillick and Gianni Vattimo
Saturday, March 13 (2010): Carles Guerra and Michael Hardt

Tickets ($10) for this event can be purchased at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82568 Series tickets ($35) for all four events can be purchased at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82573

http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/ney/kue/bku/en5032925v.htm

Amphibious Architecture: Oct 16

David Benjamin, Soo-in Yang, and Natalie Jeremijenko
Friday, October 16, 7pm
The Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue

Presented as part of the public program series organized in conjunction with the Architectural League’s fall 2009 exhibition Toward the Sentient City.

David Benjamin, Natalie Jeremijenko, and Soo-in Yang will talk about the interconnected ecosystems of land and water, and the potential overlap between social networks of fish, people, and buildings. “Amphibious Architecture,” their project for the League’s exhibition Toward the Sentient City, creates a public interface to water quality and aquatic life of urban rivers, and our interest therein. For more information about Amphibious Architecture and the exhibition, visit the exhibition website.

Tickets are required for admission to League programs. Tickets are free for League members; $10 for non-members.

http://archleague.org/2009/10/amphibious-architecture/

Iannis Xenakis: Interdisciplinary Connections: Oct 16

Miller Theatre at Columbia University
Friday, October 16, 7pm

In conjunction with Miller Theatre's "Composer Portrait" of Iannis Xenakis on October 17, a consortium of artists and experts join together for a panel discussion focusing on the interdisciplinary connections between Xenakis's music and related work as a mathematician, architect, physicist, and political activist. Panelists include composer David Lang; musicologist and Xenakis biographer Sharon Kanach; Mark Wigley, Dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; and Steven Schick, percussionist and conductor. Program is subject to change.

http://www.drawingcenter.org/events_public_01.cfm
http://www.millertheatre.com/Events/EventDetails.aspx?nid=1346

Toward "Anarchitecture": Oct 16

Toward "Anarchitecture":
A Conversation between Architects and Artists
Friday, October 16, 6-8pm
The Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place
Free for members; $10 for non-members

Moderator: Farnaz Mansuri, AIA, De-Spec
Speakers: David Ruy (Architect), Ferda Kolatan (Architect), Oscar Tuazon (Artist), Bill Menking (Editor, The Architect's Newspaper)
This is the second lecture in a multi-part fall series organized by the AIA NY New Practices Committee.

http://cfa.aiany.org/index.php?section=calendar&evtid=1110

Robert Frank: Oct 9

An Evening with Robert Frank
Friday, October 9, 6pm
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Robert Frank, born in Switzerland in 1924, is one of the great living masters of photography. In a rare New York City appearance, he will discuss with curators Jeff L. Rosenheim and Sarah Greenough his career in photography and film and the conception, execution, and response to his ground-breaking book of photographs, The Americans, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT. STANDING ROOM TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE AT THE BOX OFFICE BEGINNING ONE HOUR PRIOR TO THE EVENT. ($23.00)

http://www.metmuseum.org/tickets/calendar/view.asp?id=2894

Allan McCollum + Josiah McElheny: Oct 6

Allan McCollum and Josiah McElheny
art:21 Artists in Conversation
Tuesday, October 6, 6pm
New York Public Library
South Court Auditorium, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street

Join Season 5 artist Allan McCollum and Season 3 artist Josiah McElheny, in conversation as they explore ideas central to their work and art practice. Premiering Allan McCollum’s segment from the upcoming Art:21 episode Systems, the conversation begins with an investigation of the artist’s past work and continues with a presentation of some of McElheny’s recent projects as well as consider themes such as memory, systems, language, production, and installation.The event is free and open to the public. Seating is provided on a first come, first serve basis.

http://bombsite.powweb.com/?p=4729

Unmarketable and the Unlympics: Oct 6

Anne Elizabeth Moore
Unmarketable and the Unlympics
Tuesday, October 6, 7-10pm
Bluestockings Radical Books
172 Allen Street

Unmarketable (The New Press, 2007) is a powerful critique of corporate marketing's appropriations of and alliances with the cultural underground. Author Anne Elizabeth Moore interviews the perpetrators, victims, and not-so-innocent bystanders of phenomena both hilarious and troubling to examine the underground's changing relationship to the commercialized world and its impact on activism and integrity.

Presentation begins with short documentary on the Unlympics, a recent series of creative sporting events held in resistance to Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid, backed by infamous PR firm Hill & Knowlton.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=829069488#/event.php?eid=153219827632&index=1

James Welling and Jan Dibbets: Oct 5

Conceptual Art and Photography: James Welling in Conversation with Jan Dibbets
Monday, October 5, 2009, 6:30pm
MoMA, Theater 3
Cullman Education and Research Building
$10/8/5

Many artists include photography in their work, but they very often do so using a non-traditional approach. Dutch artist Jan Dibbets does not consider himself a photographer, although he has used the process extensively in his conceptually based work since the 1960s. James Welling, on the contrary, manipulates many of the technical elements of the medium, like light filters, and turns others, such as screens and gelatin, into the subjects of his work. Following an introduction by Anne Rorimer, independent scholar and curator, the artists discuss their varying approaches to conceptual art and photography with Christophe Cherix, Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art, and organizer of the exhibition In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/events/7160

Greenpoint’s Rooftop Farms: Oct 5

Pie in the Sky: All About Greenpoint’s Rooftop Farms
Annie Novak
Monday, October 5, 7:30pm
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer St., Brooklyn

New York City is a Farmer's Paradise! Just as Annie Novak, one of the masterminds behind Greenpoint's Rooftop Farms, a 6,000 square foot organic farm picture-esquely plopped on top of a warehouse overlooking Midtown Manhattan. Her operation--founded in partnership with Ben Flanner, a neophyte to farming, and Goode Green, a green-roofing specialist--currently produces produce for a host of Brooklyn gourmandizers, including Anella and Marlow and Sons. They even run a farm stand featuring fresh picked produce every Sunday! Come hear how this urban Agronomist tells us the unlikely story of how she did it--and learn how you can too!

http://www.petescandystore.com/open%20city%20dialogue/ocd.html