QMAil: February 2009

In this ISSUE:

EXHIBITIONS: Queens International 4 | Launch Pad Artist Residency: O Zhang | CLOSING: Jane South: Deceptive Volume (QMA at the Bulova Corporate Center)

EVENTS: MetLife presents First Sundays for Families at QMA: Queens International 4 - A Closer Look | Go Red for Women Celebration | Queens International 4 Screenings & Performances | CINEMAROSA - Queens Only Queer Film Series | Africa + Cuba = AfroCuban - A Black History Month Presentation | Voter's Rights Panel Discussion

QMA INFORMATION: Permanent Exhibitions | Special Announcements | LEARNING PROGRAMS: Tours & Workshops | Adult Programs | Credits | Subscribe to QMAil

February masthead: eteam - International Airport Montello (Eric, wind sock man) (2004- 2007); Ebay, land, runway, town and residents. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists; Commissioned by Art in General.

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Queens International 4

On view through April 26, 2009

In 2000, the US census revealed the borough of Queens to be the most diverse county in the nation. Two years later, the Queens Museum of Art inaugurated Queens International, a biennial exhibition of artists from around the world who live and/or work in Queens. Celebrating the most recent artistic achievements of Queens with 42 artists, collaborations and collectives from 18 countries working in a broad range of traditional and unorthodox media, the exhibition examines the boundaries of culture, tradition, heritage and nationality.

Like its predecessors, Queens International 4 addresses the relationship between "internationalism" and "multiculturalism" from a local standpoint. Culture is the logic by which we give order to the world. No one stands outside of it. In Queens, one comes to recognize that nations are not walled fortresses but rather permeable containers for the fluid shifts of culture. Here, multiculturalism does not imply a static representation of international identities but rather an ever-changing shift amongst multiple cultures that blurs ethnic, racial, gendered and ideological boundaries. Circumventing conventional art discourse to engage with their immediate surroundings, the artists of Queens ignite a critical dialogue through lived experience, often in the form of collaborative, site-specific and public practices.

Queens International 4 is co-curated by José Ruiz and Erin Sickler.

List of Artists:

Cara Judea Alhadeff
Heidi Boisvert
Omar Chacón
Corey D'Augustine
Gregory de la Haba
Domenick Di Pietrantonio
Alejandro Diaz
eteam
Lars Fisk
Future Shock (Nicholas Ragbir, Veronica Ragbir, Travis Bhimraj, Anil Bhimraj, Jessica Ragbir and Rattan Bhimraj)
Tommy Hartung
Karolyn Hatton
Daina Higgins
Oded Hirsch
Sin-ying Ho
Ryan Humphrey
Janelle Iglesias
Lisa Iglesias
Darren Jones
Cecilia Jurado
Jayson Keeling
Las Hermanas Iglesias
Ha Na Lee
Jia-Jen Lin
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
Yasue Maetake
Derick Melander
Brendan Mulcahy
Kirsten Nash
Kymia Nawabi
SP Weather Station (Natalie Campbell and Heidi Neilson)
OKAMOTO STUDIO (Shintaro Okamoto, Takeo Okamoto, Jeremy Mangan, Ben Grasso, Timothy Colla, Kaz Adachi, Thomas Brown, Gerard Greco, Meghan McKee and Daniel Guzman)
Jonas Olson and Carol Pereira
Douglas Paulson and the Anti-Fascist Culture Club (Chris Domenick, Christopher Robbins, Chuck Yatsuk, Elizabeth Tubergen, Emcee C. M., Master of None, Eva la Cour, Jacob Goble, John Baca and Rachelle Beaudoin)
Justine Reyes
Jaye Rhee
Dario Solman
Tim Thyzel
Nicole Tschampel
Jovan Villalba
Chin Chih Yang
Amy Yoes

Queens International 4 and related programming are made possible with the generous support of the Blumenfeld Development Group, Ltd., Build it Green! NYC, JetBlue Airlines, the QMA's Board of Trustees and Advisory Committee, our corporate and foundation supporters, members and friends.

IMAGE: Cecilia Jurado - Ashley Rosa, National Car Service from the series Miss Taxi (2008). C - Print. Diptych, 35 x 35 in. each. Courtesy of the Artist.

Launch Pad Artist Residency: O Zhang

December 2008 - May 2009

The Queens Museum of Art will break ground later this year on an expansion project that will double the size of the institution and usher in a new phase in the museum's history. In the period leading up to and through construction, the museum will be embracing our state of flux with Launch Pad, a new multi-year series of artist projects and residencies that utilizes the museum both as a site and a resource to facilitate socially collaborative and community-engaged art programs. Launch Pad offers emerging artists six-month residencies aimed at bringing artists into the fray and having them work with the museum staff and audience to energize the building, the museum's programming and the audience experience.

Launch Pad was inaugurated in Fall 2008 with Ernest Concepcion's guerilla-style wall drawings project Queens 20/20, which playfully intervened with the QMA collection exhibition The Gift 2008. Now we are hosting an artist-in-residency with photographer and mixed-media artist O Zhang.

O is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London and Central Academy of Art in Beijing. She moved to New York in 2004, and since then has been living and working between New York and Beijing. The insightfully selected subjects in her recent photographic series —Chinese girls as the most unwanted population in contemporary China, Western families adopting young Chinese girls, and the rapid globalization of Beijing—speak eloquently about the societal and cultural transitions in China today.

For Launch Pad, O has been closely working with QMA staff members since December 2008, exploring the communities in Queens to produce a new project, Together We Are Stronger. The artist is investigating and identifying the communities in Queens through the active working relationships with the borough's diverse population that the QMA has established through its wide ranging exhibition schedule, public events and education programs. The artist is interested in hearing real voices from various individuals and communities about their sustaining hopes and community pride in this moment of political and economical shifts, and translating those voices into a visual expression to be shared beyond the existing socio-cultural boundaries.

O Zhang's residency continues through May 2009.

Launch Pad is made possible by support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., The Greenwall Foundation, and The Cowles Charitable Trust.
IMAGE: Salute to the Patriot, 2008, C-print, edition of 6, 48 x 60 inches, Courtesy of the artist and CRG Gallery, New York.

CLOSING: Jane South: Deceptive Volume

On view through February 15, 2009

QMA at the Bulova Corporate Center

From a distance, thousands of hand-painted lines give South's relief sculptures the impression of solidity. On closer inspection, however, their resemblance to industrial devices falls away. Clinging to the wall by paper hooks and straight pins, these machines are incapable of producing anything. Using the delicate flatness of paper to mimic the apparent solidity of architectural, technological, and industrial forms, they question things we take for granted–what is tenuous and what is substantial, what will perish and what will stand the test of time. Once again confusing the signifiers of strength and frailty, South fools our expectations of what is fleeting and what is real.

IMAGE: Jane South, Untitled (Long Brown/Red), 2007. Hand-cut and folded paper, mixed media. Courtesy of the artist and Spencer Brownstone Gallery.

This program is sponsored by the Blumenfeld Development Group, Ltd. and the Queens Museum of Art.

Additional exhibition information is available here.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Presents First Sundays for Families at QMA: Queens International 4 - A Closer Look

Sunday, February 1, 1 - 4:30 pm

Celebrating the opening of Queens International 4, the museum's fourth biennial, and the unequalled diversity of Queens join us as we highlight several exhibiting artists, including Jia-Jen Lin and Derick Melander, who will be present near their artwork for a very special tour. Then bring unwanted and lightly worn clothes to participate in artist Melander's project to make a sculpture out of stacks of donated clothes. Also join us for Interactive dance workshop with Susan Thomason of City Center where participants will explore the concepts of kinetic human sculpture, and a hands-on artmaking workshop on the theme of what makes Queens families unique presented by SCORE! Education Centers.

Go Red for Women Celebration

Friday, February 6, 6 – 9 pm

American Heart Association's Conozca Su Corazón / Know Your Heart campaign invites you to celebrate a national day of awareness for women's cardiovascular health. The event features complimentary blood pressure screenings, a brief presentation on heart disease in women, wellness activities such as tai chi and Zumba, as well as heart healthy refreshments. For the occasion both the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and the Panorama of City of New York will be bathed in red light. Remember to wear comfortable red clothes. Please RSVP by Thursday, February 5 to Gladys Ayala-Borjas at the American Heart Association, or via phone at (212) 878-5915

Queens International 4 Screenings & Performances

Saturday, February 7, 12 - 7 pm

12 - 2 pm: Join artist Derick Melander in his participatory project Into the Fold (2009). During the opening and throughout the exhibition, he will be creating a site-specific work that made from folded and stacked second-hand clothing with the help of museum guests. Dereck asks people to bring their unwanted clothes to contribute to his project.

2 - 3 pm: QI4 artists SP Weather Station have installed a weather station on the roof of the Queens Museum of Art and sculptor Nathalie Miebach will deliver the first in a series of three presentations and workshops around the data they have collected. Miebach translates scientific data related to ecology, climate change and meteorology into three-dimensional structures principally through weaving – in particular basket weaving.

3 - 6 pm: A Frame Apart: Short Films on Queens followed by Q&A with directors & light refreshments
There are over 118 nationalities and cultural groups living in Queens. Many are recent immigrants while others have been here for several generations. There are stories from around the world on its streets -- some are visible to the casual visitor, while others unfold more discreetly. Queens is the both a muse and a battleground, simultaneously a node connecting world cities and a patchwork of insular neighborhoods. The advent of digital video technologies, has given rise to numerous documentaries on the complex and fast-evolving cultural phenomena of this borough, as well as playful experimentations with forms and genres that come with the meeting of disparate cultures. With A Frame Apart the Queens Museum of Art showcases these singular visions, which are at once intimately local and inexorably intertwined with the tumultuous forces of global capital.

Made in Queens (Nicolas Randall and Joe Stevens, 2008, 10 min.)
Profiles “America's first stereobike crew,” a group of IndoCaribbean kids from Richmond Hill who modified their BMX bikes with banging sound systems.
Two Dollar Dance (Yolanda Pividal, 2008, 17 min.)
Every weekend, hundreds of Latino immigrants pack the dance clubs of Jackson Heights, where they meet the "two-dollars ballerinas," women who will be their dance floor partners for two dollars a song. Through their eyes, this film dives into the stories of men and women who leave their families and countries behind to work in the United States.
Around the Way (Ruby Flores, 2008, 11 min.)
Filmed in Jamaica, Queens, and is an exploration of diversity, identity, and being a Filipina-American woman. The film celebrates friendship and a summer afternoon in Queens.
The Irish Ropes (Robert Sarnoff, 2006, 30 min.)
The Irish Ropes charts the rise and fall of a champion-producing gym on a dead end street in Far Rockaway, while simultaneously following ten Golden Glove aspirants on their quest for glory at Madison Square Garden.
Modern Day Arranged Marriage (Rehana Mirza, 2006, 6 min.)
When two young Indian-Americans, Rajesh and Suna, meet in a local restaurant to "interview one another," is marriage on the menu or just coffee?
Aris and the Art of Parkour Bhangra-Fu (Chrysovalantis Stamelos & Paras H. Chaudharti, 2007, 12 min.)
A stolen bag leads our hero on a chase through the streets of Astoria. This throwback to the old school Hong Kong martial arts films remixed with French Parkour and some Greek, Arabic and Indian music is a newly re-energized action genre.

6 – 7 pm: Concert: Face the Music
Face the Music is made up of twenty students, ages 11 to 16, who love new classical music. Many of the students have played in the group since the founding, in the fall of 2005, by current director and Queens resident Jenny Undercofler, and composer Huang Ruo. In January of 2008, the group helped to re-open Merkin Hall with the premiere of Ira Mowitz's Kol Aharon for violin, digital soundtrack, and ensemble. Face the Music has performed at Roulette, and twice on the Wordless Music Series. They have also been broadcast live on WNYC. Most recently, Face the Music performed works by Philip Glass and Michael Gordon at Le Poisson Rouge.

CINEMAROSA - Queens Only Queer Film Series: HipLens – Queer Black Cinema Now

Sunday, February 15, 3 - 6 pm

Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture (Byron Hurt, USA, 2005, video, 60 min.)
A Black History Month Presentation: In this powerful documentary, former college football star Byron Hurt examines the underpinnings of hip-hop culture, mapping its shadow side as a zone of hypermasculinity, misogyny and homophobia. With exceeding courage, Hurt (an avowed hip-hop "head") plunges deep into his experience of culture and identity, detailing the cohesive voice that hip-hop music has afforded to disenfranchised urban communities, and the pained masculinity of 'gangsta rap', exhorting violence against women and gays and among black men themselves.
Special performance by a local gay rapper. Refreshments will be served.

CINEMAROSA is a monthly independent LGBT film series created by New Media artist, Hector Canonge. Screenings are Every Third Sunday of the Month hosted by the Queens Museum of Art. For more information, visit CINEMAROSA.

Africa + Cuba = AfroCuban - A Black History Month Presentation

Sunday, February 15, 3 - 5 pm

A live percussion ensemble will perform son, bolero, rumba, guaguanco, guajira, guaracha, columbia and comparsa, products of AfroCuban folklore. The program includes the corresponding African call-response vocals, Amerindian instruments (maraca and guiro) and interactive clave instruction segment.

Voter's Rights Panel Discussion

Saturday, February 21, 2 - 5 pm

Questions abound on the voting rights in this country. Join us for a bilingual panel discussion on the process of registering and voting in elections. If you would like to learn or express your opinion on how voting can influence housing, education, and health, join us.
Panelists include:
Julissa Ferrera - Candidate for Council on District 21
Valeria Treves – Executive Director, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE)
Yolanda Andersson – Diversity Center of Queens, Center of Cultures

Public Events at the Queens Museum of Art are supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Ford Foundation Partners for Livable Communities, J. M. Kaplan Fund, and Independence Community Foundation.

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