QMAil: April 2006
Hola. So it's April and you can't imagine what we have in store for you. We've got Mexico City (ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City and Open Routines: Recent Projects by Pedro Lasch). We've got Taiwan (Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7). We've got “Oy Meets World,” our month-long Jewish Culture Festival featuring everything from a gay Jewish hip-hop wizard and a veteran of Def Poetry Jam, to poignant films and theatrical performances. Hopefully, with spring in the air, the seeds of understanding that we're planting will start to bloom. Enjoy.
April masthead: Mónica Ruzansky, Fifteen Year Old Girl with White Fox (detail), 1998. Color print on paper, 32 x 52 in.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City
March 12 — August 20, 2006
As the third-largest city in the world, Mexico City and its 22 million inhabitants are exposed to an infinite amount of stimuli that encourages a free and playful interaction of imagery unique to this sprawling locale. ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City features some 165 photographs, video pieces, prints, engravings, animations, short films and objects capturing the true experience of living in this energetic and enigmatic metropolis. Arranged alphabetically, ABCDF literally provides the ABCs of Mexico City, or Distrito Federal, from abasto (supply), represented by Nestor Quiñones' photomural (measuring 12' x 22') of mountains of the empty produce crates that supply the city, to Zoom, a series of six satellite images that capture the urban sprawl. What lies in between is a journey through the wonderfully enchanting, the less-than-desirable, the tragic and completely joyous, all combining to create the first in-depth survey of daily life in the largest city in North America. Features work by Francis Alys, Miguel Calderon, Ximena Cuevas, Silvia Gruner, Gabriel Kuri, Yoshua Okon, Daniela Rossell, Sabastian Romo, Pedro Reyes and Daniel Guzman and others.
Maurycy Gomulicki, Hero, 1998. Color print on paper, 16 x 23 1/4 in.
ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City at the Queens Museum of Art has been made possible by the generous support of: CONACULTA: Mexico's National Council for Culture and Arts. Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, Control Bureau, Fundacion Televisa, SRE: Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affiars, The Mex-Am Cultural Foundation, Inc., The Consulate General of Mexico in New York, Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, Cuervo Tradicional, Mexicana Airlines, Tortilleria Chinantla, Dasein Foundation, Jarritos, Corona, Villacero Group, and Vitro.
More information about ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City is available here.
Open Routines: Recent Projects by Pedro Lasch
March 12 — July 9, 2006
Artist, educator, activist, and cultural organizer Pedro Lasch was born in Mexico City in 1975 and lived there until he moved to New York at the age of 19. Since 1999. Lasch has focused on creating multiple art initiatives that bridge the local concerns and interests of recent Latino immigrants in Queens and beyond with the current state of international politics. Open Routines: Recent Project by Pedro Lasch reflects the artist's preoccupation with the theory and practice of socially engaged art through a series of public interventions within the flow of the everyday. The four works shown in Open Routines, spanning an eight year period, have generated engaging ways to link contemporary art to the Latino community located within the Museum's immediate neighborhood. Three of the four projects involve direct exchanges and collaborations with various communities in Queens. Most of the pieces refer directly to the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, and reflect cross-class and cosmopolitan perspectives.
Pedro Lasch, Latino/a America Series (QMA installation view), 2006. Acrylic on wall,12' x 15'.
Open Routines: Recent Projects by Pedro Lasch and emerging artists projects at the QMA are supported by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., The Greenwall Foundation and the Jerome Foundation.
More information is available here.
Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7
March 12 — July 9, 2006
Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, Municipal Parking Garage, Queens Plaza, 2005. Duratran, 20 x 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
For millennia, civilizations have laid their roots along the fertile banks of major rivers to reap the rich natural resources. From the Nile to the Amazon and Yangtze, the river basins have become the birthplaces of new cultures and societies. Today it is the manmade arteries that serve as the spines of new communities and none in New York has become home to a more diverse system of societies than the culturally rich soils that surround the #7 train. In his first solo museum exhibition, Taiwanese-born, Queens-based photographer and winner of the 2nd Annual New York Times Magazine “Capture the Times” Photography Competition, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, examines the various enclaves that exist on the route between Times Square and Flushing. Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7 features 30 of Liao's large-scale panoramic images - some measuring 8 feet in width - printed on Duratrans and installed in lightboxes surrounding the QMA's historic Panorama of the City of New York, inviting not only a reconsideration of the ways in which modern societies evolve around the river basins of today, but also the deep breadth and depth of the communities that have developed along a single subway line.
Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7 has been made possible by the generous support of the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan, R.O.C. in collaboration with the Taipei Cultural Center, TECO in New York, JGS, Inc. and Crystal Foundation.
More information is available here.
Local Words: An Interactive Installation by Sol Aramendi
March 12 - July 9, 2006
The Artzone, the Museum's interactive family-friendly art space, has been transformed into a living room by Queens based artist, Sol Aramendi. The walls are covered by photographs taken by students participating in a photography workshop offered in Spanish at Local Project Art Collective. Echoing the concept of ABCDF, the students used the structure of the alphabet as their guide to identify local words that help define the essence of Queens. The installation also includes a video installation where visitors take a subway ride of ethnic diversity through images of immigrant women pronouncing the letters of the alphabet in different languages. Visitors can be part of this installation by sharing their own stories and images of Queens through a series of writing and drawing activities. On Sundays, visitors can have their portraits taken, and add their recorded testimonies to the constantly evolving installation.
Images of Home: Reclaiming Our Immigrant Past and Present
April 23 - 30, 2006, QMA Community Gallery
Opening Reception: Sunday, April 23, 2 - 4 pm
Youth participants from the ARISE co-ed leadership group at South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!) have created a body of work relating to the theme of home, exploring the South Asian youth experience in terms of cultural heritage, collective and individual identities, representations of the immigrant experience, and memories that bridge past and present consciousness. At the opening reception artists will be presenting their work while raising awareness about current political issues in immigration reform through a brief presentation and materials for distribution.
Refreshments will be served.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Oy Meets World: Jewish Culture Festival — Every Sunday in April
Sunday, April 2, 3 - 4:30 pm
Screening of Paper Clips (Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab, USA, 2004, 78min., rated G) the compelling documentary telling the story of a rural Tennessee middle school class that goes on a quest to collect six million paperclips to represent each Jewish person killed in the Holocaust.
4:30 - 5:30 pm
The solo performance, Walking in Memphis: The Life of a Southern Jew, traces the life of Jonathan Ross, an actor and playwright now living in New York City and a founding company member of Storahtelling: Jewish Ritual Theatre Revived. Brief Q/A & refreshments follow.
Sunday, April 9, 4 - 6 pm
The Afro-Semitic Experience is an ensemble dedicated to preserving, promoting and expanding the rich cultural and musical heritage of the Jewish and African diaspora. Imagine a band that understands and can present interpretations of music from traditions as rich as Gospel, Klezmer, Nigunim, Spirituals, and Swing and you have the Afro-Semitic Experience.
Sunday, April 16, 3 - 6 pm
CINEMAROSA — Queens Only Queer Film Series presents a special screening & performances
Trembling Before G-d (Sandi Simcha Dobowski, USA, 2001, 84 min.)
Built around intimately told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian. Program includes the shorts:
Naming Prairie (Alejandra Juhasz, USA, 2001, 7 min.) & Casualty (Andre Abrahams, USA, 1999, 5 min.)
Comfort or conflict? A gift or deception? Filmed entirely underwater, where even struggle appears beautiful, this mythic and dreamlike piece highlights the unraveling of an intimate relationship.
The screenings are followed by reception & performances by SOCE, The Elemental Wizard: gay Jewish hip-hop sensation heavy delivery, dope beats, and the occasional organ riff.
Sunday, April 23, 4 - 6 pm
Jewish poets Corie Feiner, Elana Bell, and Sabrina Hayeem-Ladani comprise performance group Shechina. In addition, Basya Schechter leads her band, Pharoah's Daughter, through their blend of psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality.
Sunday, April 30, 4 - 6 pm
Poetry by Def Poetry Jam participant, actress/poet/playwright/native New Yorker Vanessa Hidary & the anti-folk music of Dan Fishback, a performance artist and singer-songwriter. His band, Cheese On Bread, released its first album, Maybe Maybe Maybe Baby, to international acclaim in 2004.
Second Sonidero Exchange / Segundo Intercambio Sonidero
Saturday, April 22, 2 - 5 pm
If you've never been to a sonidero party, imagine an MC giving shout-outs to friends and families — both local and abroad — while the music and videos of their hometowns in Mexico work the crowd into a frenzy. For the QMA sonidero parties, the public is invited to bring sonidero materials such as CDs, DVDs, LPs, T-shirts, flyers, and posters to the Museum to add to Mexican artist Pedro Lasch's interactive Sonidero altar/archive in the Unisphere Gallery. Sonidero videos will be shown, and presentations will be made by guest speakers including Tony Neri (Brooklyn sonidero networks), Angel Nevarez (Los Nukiis), and friends of the Leadership Through the Arts Students at QMA.
Dia del Niño / Day of the Child
Sunday, April 30, 1 - 3 pm
CelebrateDia del Niño / Day of the Child, a holiday honoring the essence of childhood - innocence, playfulness and a carefree outlook on life - with food, dance performances, art-making workshops, music and more. Organizations including The Queens Library, Mexicanos Unidos de Queens, Associacion Tepeyac, the Mexican American Student Alliance, and Mex-Ed (The Mexican Educational Foundation of New York) will be on hand to provide information in English & Spanish that will help parents navigate the school system and provide after-school activities for youth. The Queens Economic Development Corporation will provide information and counseling for small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. Art-making workshops will focus on games from Latin America and a scavenger hunt (with prizes) for the exhibition ABCDF. Some of the games created in the workshop will be donated to local children's hospitals.
QMA INFORMATION
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens NY 11368
TEL: 718 592 9700
HOURS
SEPTEMBER 6 - JUNE 25
Wednesday - Friday:
10:00am - 5:00pm
Saturday and Sunday:
12:00pm - 5:00pm
Closed Monday & Tuesday
ADMISSION
Admission is by suggested donation.
Adults: $5.00
Senior and Children: $2.50
Members and Children
under five: Free
TOURS
Enjoy free tours of the Panorama and special exhibitions on Saturdays and Sundays, including Spanish tours on Sundays.
LOCATION
UNISPHERE CAFÉ
Open every weekend — featuring small plates, sushi, desserts and beverages. Lunch with a view of the Unisphere.
SIGN-UP or PASS-ALONG QMAil
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April Series
From the Queens Library to the QMA: The Artists Talk Series — Polina Porras
The QMA/Queens Library Artist Talk Series continues with Russian-Mexican artist Polina Porras. On Wednesday, April 5, 6:30 - 7:30 pm, Polina will discuss her work and the experiences as an immigrant artist at the Rego Park Library. Talk will be in Russian. The following Saturday, April 9, 2 - 4 pm, join Polina for a free art-making workshop at the QMA based on themes and techniques she uses in her own work. The workshop will be in Russian with translation in Spanish and English. Both events are free of charge.
The Film Series — “And the Verdict Is... Films on Law and Justice”
Mark Ethan presents this 10-week series representing the law and its process, both within as well as beyond the frame of the courtroom, expressing the urban or rural social context.
Monday, April 3, 2 pm
Rashomon(Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1950, 88 min., Japanese with English ST) in which the changing nature of truth is examined in this Oscar-winning film that presents four version of a crime.
Monday, April 10, 2 pm
Strip Search(Sidney Lumet, USA, 2004, 120min.). Scripted by Tom Fontana and starring Glenn Close and Maggie Gyllenhaal, this tense film explores how a perceived need for security can lead to a police state.
Monday, April 24, 2 pm
Anatomy of a Murder(Otto Preminger, USA, 1959, 160min.), a gripping courtroom drama of a killing in a small town, starring James Stewart and George C. Scott.
The Looking Series — “LOOKING AT THE METROPOLIS”, Slide-Talks by Miriam Brumer
On the occasion of the exhibition ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City, The Looking Series will focus on looking at the metropolis in art. Various aspects of large cosmopolitan areas in the world have always been investigated by artists; whether it be from the architectural, social or purely visual standpoint, cities have long served as a setting, to provide an ambience or as a source of documentation for the changing currents in art. Triumphal columns and arches in ancient Rome, pageantry recorded in Renaissance Florence, Lautrec's portrayal of nightlife in turn of the century Paris, decadence in 1920's Berlin as etched by George Grosz, and lively mixed media renditions of contemporary New York created by Red Grooms — all of these present us with a sense of a particular city in a particular art historical context.
The cost is $5 per session, free for members.
Thursday, April 6,
2 - 3:30 pm
Paris and late 19th century movements
Followed with performance by The Forest Hills Chamber Players
Thursday, April 20,
2 - 3:30 pm
Vienna, Berlin, Dresden - 1900- 1930's
Thursday, April 27,
2 - 3:30 pm
Paris: early to mid-20th century
Ongoing Permanent Exhibitions
The Panorama of the City of New York
The Panorama of the City of New York, originally commissioned by Robert Moses for the 1964 World's Fair, is the largest architectural scale model in the world. At 9,335 square feet, it includes the 320 square miles and 895,000 buildings that comprise the city. With a scale of 1 inch:1200 feet, the Panorama offers a truly unique view of the five boroughs, one that has left the six million people who have seen it in awe. As the lights fade and night falls on New York, viewers can experience the unique view of the city at night, with the city's streets glowing with activity.
Tiffany: The Glass
This new installation of Tiffany glass from the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass is the first to focus solely on the flat sheets of opalescent glass Louis C. Tiffany used to create the spectacular leaded windows and lamps for which he is best known. Tiffany: The Glass delves into some of his explorations into the replication of flower petals, autumn foliage, sunsets and even angels' wings.
CALLS FOR ENTRIES
Queens International 2006
(October 1, 2006 — January 14, 2007)
An invitation to artists of all media, who currently live and/or work in the borough of Queens to have their work reviewed for possible inclusion in the exhibition.
DEADLINE: June 1, 2006 (postmarked)
More information is available here.
Dance in Queens: Dance Residency Summer 2006
Queens Museum of Art and TOPAZ ARTS announce the fourth annual dance residency project to take place Summer 2006. This residency promotes dance in Queens and encourages the creative process by offering choreographers the opportunity to rehearse and perform at the Queens Museum of Art located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
DEADLINE: April 21, 2006 (postmarked)
Download PDF file for more information.
The Queens Museum is housed in the New York City Building, which is owned by the City of New York. With the assistance of the Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and the New York City Council, the Museum is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York City Department for the Aging and the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development. Additional funding is provided by the New York State Legislature, the New York State Council on the Arts, New York Council on the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, generous corporate and foundation supporters, members and friends.
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