QMAil : July 2009

CONTENTS:

EXHIBITIONS: Tarjama / Translation | Launch Pad Artist Residency: Johanna Unzueta Iron Folklore | Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center | Work in Progress: Dorothea Rockburne’s Homage to Colin Powell

EVENTS: MetLife presents First Sundays for Families at QMA: Launch Pad: Johanna Unzueta’s Iron Folklore | Indian Karaoke Singing Group presents Chak De Bollywood Tri-State Karaoke Competition Grand Finale | Thank You, Housing Advocates - A Party for You! | Kickoff Cocktail Celebration for Colombian Cultural Week | Passport Fridays 2009 | Grupo Raices Open House | Ecuador Profundo Documentary Screenings | 2nd Annual Tour de Queens Bike Ride with Transportation Alternatives | Colombian Cultural Week presents AfroColombian Day Celebration | Semilla a la Excelencia Colombiana / The Seed of Colombian Excellence | Slide Presentation: Architectures of Crisis/ Architectures of Resistance (OFFSITE) | Colombian Independence Day Festival in the Park presents: Our Flag, Our Country, Our Home - A Participatory Performance | CINEMAROSA - Queens Only Queer Film Series | Kosh Ba Kosh Screening | Community Credit Crunch Town Hall (OFFSITE) | Blue Pipa, Inc. presents: Meet the Asian Masters - a lecture/performance | Young Dancemakers Company Responds to Tarjama/Translation

QMA INFORMATION: Permanent Exhibitions | Special Announcements

LEARNING PROGRAMS: Tours & Workshops

Credits

July masthead: From Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center: Damon Rich, Blockbusting, 2008. Neon lights.

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Tarjama / Translation

On view through September 27, 2009

Tarjama / Translation maps an influential subset of recent work from the Middle East and Central Asia and their diasporas as a complex and dynamic undertaking. Rather than providing a panoramic and fleeting exposure to contemporary “Middle Eastern” and “Central Asian” art, Tarjama / Translation provides focus on selected artistic processes of cultural and critical translation.

Contemporary artists are perhaps the greatest translators. Their work transforms experience, perception, and thought into acts and materials of communication by scrutinizing everything at hand--materiality, culture, society, and beliefs. In Tarjama / Translation, language and textuality remain salient, but the exhibition includes approaches of visual translation for engaging with the complexities of our present era. Tarjama / Translation addresses the work of translation as multivalent, from the specificities of textual and visual manoeuvres to the larger sense of revealing fissures of the self, community, site and temporality. It focuses on how contemporary artists negotiate the formation of history influenced by continued states of dislocation and track newer dilemmas engendered by a globalized world saturated with the hyper-commercialism of media and popular culture.

Featured Artists

Ayad Alkadhi, Iraq, b. 1972
Nazgol Ansarinia, Iran, b. 1979
Hamdi Attia, Egypt, b. 1964
Lara Baladi, Egypt, b. 1969
Yto Barrada, Morocco, b. 1971
Esra Ersen, Turkey, b. 1970
Khaled Hafez, Egypt, b. 1963
Emily Jacir, Palestine, b. 1970
Pouran Jinchi, Iran, b. 1959
John Jurayj, USA, b. 1968
Gülsün Karamustafa, Turkey, b. 1946
Bouchra Khalili, Morocco, b. 1975
Almagul Menlibayeva, Kazakhstan, b.1969
Farhad Moshiri, Iran, b. 1963
Rabih Mroué, Lebanon, b. 1967
Rahraw Omarzad, Afghanistan, b. 1964
Khalil Rabah, Palestine, b. 1961
Khaled Ramadan, Lebanon, b. 1964
Michael Rakowitz, USA, b. 1973
Solmaz Shahbazi, Iran, b. 1971
Wael Shawky, Egypt, b. 1971
Mitra Tabrizian, Iran
Alexander Ugay, Kazakhstan, b. 1978
Sharif Waked, Israel/Palestine, b. 1964
Dilek Winchester, Turkey, b. 1974
Yelena Vorobyeva & Viktor Vorobyev, Kazakhstan, b. 1959 & 1959
Akram Zaatari, Lebanon, b. 1966

Tarjama / Translation is organized by ArteEast, and curated by Leeza Ahmady and Iftikhar Dadi, with assistant curator Reem Fadda.

Major support for Tarjama / Translation has been provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts and the A. M. Qattan Foundation.

IMAGE: Khaled Hafez, Revolution, 2006. Single-channel video, 4 min. Courtesy the artist.

Launch Pad Artist Residency: Johanna Unzueta Iron Folklore

On view through September 27, 2009

Iron Folklore is an extensive site-specific installation work by Johanna Unzueta as part of the QMA's Launch Pad Artist Residency and Project program. Drawing from her recurrent interest in the history of labor, Unzueta creates sculptural and environmental installations often made exclusively of thick felt.

Iron Folklore occupies the museum’s elevator and the second floor balcony area with a subtle, yet powerful response to a socio-cultural narrative found in the gritty industrial area known as the “Iron Triangle” in Willets Point, within walking distance of the museum. The Iron Triangle, has been the home of auto repair shops, scrap yards, waste processing sites, and similar small businesses since the 1950s, but it’s rich, if not sordid, history is soon to end with a new urban renewal plan.

Transforming and connecting the spaces in the museum with shapes of industrial elements made of felt, Unzueta’s Iron Folklore addresses the contradictory notions of and the relationships between labor and culture in a local context.

Launch Pad is supported with grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, and Cowles Charitable Trust. Additional funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

IMAGE: File photos of the Iron Triangle (November 2008). Courtesy of the artist and CRG Gallery, New York.

Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center

On view through September 27, 2009

Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center, a large-scale installation of models, drawings, photographs, and videos by artist-designer Damon Rich, melds Sesame Street graphics with do-it-yourself investigations into the intricacies of real estate finance. For Red Lines, Rich has collected the history and material culture behind the current economic crisis into an experimental site for reflection and learning. Explore the threatening spikes and troughs of interest rates in the form of a plywood construction 40 feet long and 14 feet tall; enter a ghostly looming bust of Frederick Babcock, pioneer of real estate appraisal; and walk through photographic panorama of houses in Detroit and its suburbs. Photographs and video interviews with players in the field—from community activists to investment bankers—transform abstract financial markets into networks of, if not humane, then clearly human positions.

Rich's project was initiated during a 2007 artist residency at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of a project of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), the Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization founded by the artist. Further developing the work as part of the Queens Museum's residency program, Rich will design new pieces for the famous Panorama of the City of New York and museum café. Rich, QMA, and CUP will organize a series of talks and screenings both on- and off-site, partnering with New York City community organizations to bring people together around urgent housing issues throughout the summer.

Today, against the backdrop of the Subprime Meltdown that has pushed people out of homes, ruined neighborhoods, bankrupted institutions, and contributed to a global economic crisis, Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center aims to broaden and enrich the urgent conversation about how our society finances its living environments.

Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center is presented in dialogue with The University of Trash, an exhibition by artists Nils Norman and Michael Cataldi on view at SculptureCenter May 10 – August 3, 2009. Norman and Cataldi propose a radical imagination and radically different space might look like coming out of this crisis. The two exhibitions will co-host public programs and each will include an installed element from the other.

IMAGE: Installation view of The University of Trash, 2009. Courtesy SculptureCenter.

Please join us on Wednesday, July 8, for a cocktail and discussion about the project.

Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center was created by Damon Rich as a project of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT and the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).

Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center is funded by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Artists & Communities, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, which is made possible by major funding from Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. A publication funded by The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts will be available during the exhibition. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

IMAGE: Detroit Housing Outcomes, 2006-2008. Installation view, MIT Museum Compton Gallery.

Work in Progress: Dorothea Rockburne’s Homage to Colin Powell

Work in Progress through August, 2009

In June 2009, Montreal-born American artist Dorothea Rockburne will begin work on a 40-foot mural in the Queens Museum’s Large Triangle Gallery. Destined for the U.S. Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica, this new work was commissioned by the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) and honors General Colin Powell, whose parents were from Jamaica. Titled Homage to Colin Powell, it depicts the sky over Jamaica on the night he was born. Rockburne, in partnership with Evergreene Architectural Arts, Inc., will execute the mural between May 18 and early August, 2009. Following its completion, Homage will be on display at the Queens Museum until early September, and shipped to Jamaica and installed in the atrium of the embassy later this year. This marks the first time a FAPE project has been created in public view.

Dorothea Rockburne is a leading American abstract artist. Born in 1932, Rockburne draws inspiration primarily from a deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. Since the late 1960s, she has aligned herself with the classical tradition, exploring geometry, equilibrium, and proportional relationships while using materials like cardboard and crude oil and, more recently, gold leaf and pure pigment. Through deliberate choices of color and composition, Rockburne brings together the human desire for transcendence and the mathematical structures that underlie all of nature. Her work has been seen in one-person exhibitions at numerous galleries and in museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The Dorothea Rockburne Reading Room, located in the same gallery, is the latest in a series of reading rooms developed as part of QMA’s collaboration with the Queens Library. The Reading Room provides reference materials on subjects that inform the mural and how they relate to each other and to Queens residents. Some of the subjects included are astronomy, mural-making, and Colin Powell. The Reading Room also features a short documentary on the project by Ed Howard of the Checkerboard Film Foundation.

For the past 30 years, the third largest foreign-born population in New York City has been from Jamaica. Almost a fourth of the total Jamaican community lives in Queens, making the Queens Museum of Art a fitting location for the execution, interpretation, and unveiling of Rockburne’s artwork. This is a unique opportunity both to learn about how one artist works and to delve into the immigrant heritage of a widely admired American.

The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) is the leading non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the United States’ image abroad through American art. Founded as a public-private, non-partisan partnership in 1986, FAPE works with the U.S. Department of State to exhibit fine art in U.S. embassies around the world. FAPE’s donations include works by more than 145 preeminent American artists placed in over 70 countries. For more information, please visit www.fapeglobal.org.
This project is part of FAPE’s Art in New Embassies program and has been made possible by FAPE and Leonore Annenberg through the Annenberg Foundation with additional funds from the Cobb Family Foundation.

SPECIAL EVENTS

presents First Sundays for Families at QMA: Launch Pad: Johanna Unzueta’s Iron Folklore

Sunday, July 5, 1:30 - 4 pm

Join for a tour of Johanna Unzueta’s Iron Folklore, an extensive site-specific installation work inspired by the car repair shops in nearby Willets Point. Drawing from her interest in the history of labor, Unzueta creates sculptures made exclusively of thick felt. After the tour make your own felt scultptures in our studios and join in a sing-along of work songs with musician Gabriela Callendar.

Indian Karaoke Singing Group presents Chak De Bollywood Tri-State Karaoke Competition Grand Finale

Sunday, July 5, noon - 8 pm

Indian Karaoke Singing Group (IKSG) is a non-profit started in 2007 with the intention of encouraging and empowering the singing talent among the Indian community. IKSG provide a stage for the beginners as well as for those who are waiting for a chance to get into singing competitions. It is a friendly group of people from all walks of life bound together by the passion of music. Watch the finale contestants in a day-long battle for the Tri-State singing championship title. Light Refreshments provided. Visit IKSG for more info.

Thank You, Housing Advocates - A Party for You!

Wednesday, July 8, 7 - 9 pm

Redlines Housing Crisis Learning Center Artist Damon Rich invites everyone hard at work on the housing crisis in New York City to join him in The Panorama of the City of New York for cocktails and conversation. Standing in NYC’s waterways, he will moderate an interactive Q&A session with esteemed urban historian Kenneth Jackson, financial justice advocate and Co-Director and founder of NEDAP, Sarah Ludwig, and Housing Here & Now Coalition’s Executive Director Michelle O'Brien. Not to be missed!

Kickoff Cocktail Celebration for Colombian Cultural Week

Thursday, July 9, 6:30 - 9 pm

Join the Colombian Civic Center in launching a week of celebrations culminating in 25th Anniversary of the Colombian Independence Day Festival in Flushing Meadows Corona Park to take place Sunday, July 19, 2009.

Fridays from July 10 - August 28, 6:30 - 10 pm

American Express and the Queens Museum of Art present Passport Fridays 2009: 5th Annual International Film, Dance and Music Series
Leave your baggage at home and bring a picnic blanket out to Flushing Meadows Corona Park for the QMA's Passport Fridays, the weekly outdoor festivities feature dance performances by participants in the QMA/TOPAZ Arts Dance in Queens Residency Program, and continue with a live concert and film screening from one of the many countries that fuel Queens' cultural & artistic vitality. Colombia, Mexico, South Korea, East Africa, Jordan, Iran, Bangladesh & Taiwan are on your all inclusive summer itinerary. Click for more Passport Fridays details.

Dance and Music programs begin at 6:30 pm followed by the Film program at 8 pm each Friday. No raindates! In Case of Rain, program moves inside of museum.

American Express presents Passport Fridays 2009 at the Queens Museum of Art.

Additional support provided by J.M. Kaplan Fund, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Astoria Federal Savings and Venevision International Films.

Grupo Raices Open House

Saturday, July 11, 3 - 5 pm

Join us for an afternoon of video presentations and dance and music performances by Grupo Raices, an Andean cultural group is now enrolling students for music classes. Plus there will be a special guest performance by Grupo Khana.

Ecuador Profundo Documentary Screenings

Saturday, July 11, 7 - 10 pm

Chicha - bebida mágica / Chicha -The Magical Drink
A reflection on how Andean cultures relate to their village, by flavor, festivities and religión. The preparation of chicha, a fermented corn drink reminds them of their connections to the Earth. Followed by discussion with the director.

El documental refleja parte de la cosmovisión andina, vemos como la bebida sagrada de los Dioses “la chicha” nos recuerda la magia de nuestros pueblos, su sabor, sus fiestas, su religión, sus rituales, sus ceremonias y tradiciones, es sentir la población rural, a los indios, es hablar de la tierra, del maíz y de la yuca, es madurar los cereales y fermentar las frutas, es sentir en la sierra y oriente del Ecuador las costumbres de los herederos del pueblo inca.

2nd Annual Tour de Queens Bike Ride with Transportation Alternatives

Sunday, July 12, Check in: 8 am, Line-up: 9 am, Ride: 9:30 am

The Tour de Queens is a leisurely paced 24-mile ride open to riders of all ages and skill levels. The course will go along waterfronts, greenways, through parks and industrial and historic neighborhoods. Plus, check out the bike route on QMA’s Panorama of the City of New York, a scale-model of all five boroughs. Starts & Ends at the Queens Museum of Art.
Please note: Advance registration is now closed, but limited registration will be available on ride day starting at 8 am. Check in on a first-come first-serve basis at Flushing Meadows Corona Park near the Unisphere, but placement is not guaranteed. We ride rain or shine!

Colombian Cultural Week presents AfroColombian Day Celebration

Wednesday, July 15, 6 - 9 pm

AfroColombian Day aims to enlighten the public about the important cultural contributions AfroColombians have made to Colombian culture and national identity. The activities start with screening of Manuel Zapata Olivella: Abridor de Caminos (María Adelaida Lopez, 2007, 30 min Spanish with English ST), a documentary on the titular one of the most important AfroColombian writers and social scientist of the 20th century.
Afterwards, members of ACES (Arte Colectivo en Solidaridad) will read the poetry of Candelario Obeso, Maria Teresa Ramirez and Mary Grueso Romero, accompanied by live music. An academic panel will focus on the issue of Race, Ethnicity and Nation: The challenge of cultural integration into the national identity, including members from the AfroLatin@ Forum. The event will culminate in a music and dance performance. Join us as we learn another side of Colombian Heritage. This event is part of Colombian Cultural Week organized by the Colombian Civic Center.

Semilla a la Excelencia Colombiana / The Seed of Colombian Excellence

Saturday, July 18, 11 - 1 pm

Join us for exhibition of Colombian artists and live music presentations, as we honor local Colombian youth who have achieved high standards of academic excellence and who serve as an inspiration to their peers This event is part of Colombian Cultural Week organized by the Colombian Civic Center.

Slide Presentation: Architectures of Crisis/ Architectures of Resistance (OFFSITE)

Saturday, July 18, 4 - 7 pm

Highlighting the role of built space past and present in organizing radical movements and documenting shifting economic, social, and political climates, The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) will present a slideshow and discussion about a visionary project made real. Teddy Cruz and CUP's founder Damon Rich will discuss the economic crisis in relation to Rich's current exhibition Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center at the Queens Museum, and Cruz's ongoing work with the trans-border urbanisms at the US and Mexico border region.
Location: Sculpture Center, 44-19 Purves St. b/w Jackson & Thompson Aves, Long Island City, Queens

Colombian Independence Day Festival in the Park presents: Our Flag, Our Country, Our Home - A Participatory Performance

Sunday, July 19, noon - 6 pm

This project uses collaborative artmaking as a unifying force to promote peace and reconciliation in areas affected by the Colombian armed conflict. Utilizing the handprints of Colombians residing in America, Europe and Colombia, a Colombian flag will be created. For the first stage of the project, visiting artist Edwin Gil will be obtaining handprints of visitors to the Colombian Independence Day Festival at Flushing Meadows Corona Park and performing a campaign anthem composed by Franco Londoño.

CINEMAROSA - Queens Only Queer Film Series

Sunday, July 19, 3 - 6 pm

Pink Punch / Puños rosas (Beto Gomez, Mexico, 2005, 100 min.)
Jimmy Morales is a young boxer who also works in his family funerary business frequently used by the local mafia. One night he witnesses a murder and the killer, Germán Corona, lets him run away. They find each other again in jail, and their last encounter will mark them both forever. A romantic crime story in the mold of the new Mexican reality cinema (Amores Perros, Nicotina and the like), brakes all preconceptions of jail life and macho stereotypes in the sport of boxing. The film is not located in gritty Mexico City, but in the northern border town of Matamoros, where the underground mafia controls people and their attitudes.
Preceded by the presentation of Ay, Mijo! (Roberto Espinosa, USA , 2005, 19 min) from CINEMAROSA’s Visual Library.
Discussion about independent Queer Mexican cinema and light refreshments will follow.

  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.

Kosh Ba Kosh Screening

Saturday, July 25, 1 - 3 pm

Kosh Ba Kosh (Bakhtiyar Khudoinazarov, Tajikistan, 1993, 98 min, Russian & Tadjik with English ST)
This film is a romantic love story set against the background of civil war in Tajikistan (1992-1996). In this strange and dangerous time, the men gamble while the women hide at home. The film takes its name from an old Tajik dice game. The situation reaches absurd proportions when Daler wins a young woman, Mira, from her father. Not knowing what else to do, he takes her to a cable-car station in the mountains. At first the war seems far away, but soon it reaches their peaceful refuge. The film conveys the atmosphere of war-torn Dushanbe and the spirit of its citizens strengthened by the hardships and absurdities of war. The film won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival.

Community Credit Crunch Town Hall (OFFSITE)

Sunday, July 26, 2 - 4:30 pm

As part of Damon Rich’s exhibition on real estate finance at the Queens Museum of Art, Redlines Housing Crisis Learning Center, we are hosting a series of neighborhood meetings in foreclosure-effected areas that include short presentations by elected officials, housing advocates, urban planners, journalists, and artists followed by an open forum for community members to share their experiences, concerns, and ideas for collective action. Documentation from these forums will enrich the exhibition and its online resources.
Location: Queens Borough Public Library Main Branch Auditorium, Jamaica with NYC Council Member Leroy Comrie

Blue Pipa, Inc. presents: Meet the Asian Masters - a lecture/performance

Sunday, July 26, 6 - 7 pm

Samir Chatterjee is a virtuoso tabla player from India, and his performances and compositions are widely acclaimed. He recently performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway. Chinese pipa soloist/singer/composer Min Xiao-Fen, internationally known for her virtuosity and fluid style, has received high acclaim for her classical, new music and jazz performances. Master Japanese koto player Masayo Ishgure was recently awarded the honor of participating in the 33rd Ikusaikai program sponsored by NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation). This once in a lifetime event will feature Mr. Chatterjee's composition Wing. Co-presented with United Nations Association USA – Queens Chapter.
This program is made possible with funds from: New York City New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; the Decentralization program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts and Blue Pipa, Inc.

Young Dancemakers Company Responds to Tarjama/Translation

Thursday, July 30, 2 - 5 pm

Young Dancemakers Company is a completely free summer ensemble open to students in current grades 9-12, from public high schools throughout New York City, brought together by their love of dance and desire to create and perform their own choreography city-wide. 17 dancers from the company, accompanied by musician William Catanzaro, will explore the exhibition and develop improv work, in effect "translating" the exhibition into movement. They will present the improvised work to the public along with their repertory work. This will be followed by a workshop for audience members to try their hand at improvisatory choreography.
2 – 3 pm - Presentation of Gallery Improvisations
3 - 4:30 pm - Repertory Performance
4:30 - 5 pm Audience Improvisation Workshop

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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