Viviane Sassen @ Danziger Projects

March 4 - April 10, 2010
Opening Reception March 4 6-8pm

Over the past several years, Viviane Sassen has emerged as one of the freshest voices in European photography. Already an acclaimed fashion photographer whose work appears regularly in magazines such as French VOGUE, Purple, V, and i-D, in 2001 Sassen began regular trips to Africa, where she had lived as a child. Her work there moved away from fashion and documentary and towards an ongoing body of collaborative portraits.

In this work she has established a visual vocabulary that is stylized, symbolic and mysterious. Her aesthetic combines a sense of childhood memory, where scenes are crystallized and highly saturated with color with a photographer's sensitivity to the body and surface. The strong presence of shadow and darkness in Sassen's images provokes more questions than answers. If there is such a thing as magical realism in photography, these photographs embody it.

This exhibition, Sassen's first American showing, draws on work from three series -'Die Son Sien Alles' (The Sun Sees Everything), made in South Africa; 'Flamboya', made in Zambia and East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania); and the series 'Ultra Violet', made in Ghana. These portraits combine the spontaneous with the staged, and often come out of ideas that Sasson carries in a sketchbook of inspirations for future compositions. These ideas are shared with her subjects as the starting point for each photograph. Critic Vince Aletti commented, "Her photographs tease convention but with witty and unexpected results, partly because her subjects are all young Africans who seem to have enjoyed collaborating with her. She tends to treat the body as a sculptural element — a malleable shape that combines with blocks of shadow and bright color in arrangements that sometimes read like cut-paper collages, bold and abstract but full of vibrant life."

Danziger Projects
534 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Annalisa Iadicicco @ BronxArtSpace

John Doe © Annalisa Iadicicco

Wednesday, March 3rd, 6pm - 9pm
Saturday, March 6th, 7pm - 10pm
BronxArtSpace: 305 East 140th Street, Bronx NY 10454

There will be live performances, experimental film, and visual art. The event will be free (donations accepted). The Synthetic Zero loft events will be part of the Bronx Culture Trolley. Note: the visual art exhibit will be open Fridays and Saturdays 2-7pm during the month of March 5-26.

Annalisa Iadicicco will have one of her installations on display among many other great artists. For a full list of artists check out Synthetic zero's website.

Annalisa Iadicicco

Helen Levitt: her photographs and movies 1 year after her death

all images by Helen Levitt

"Helen Levitt found magic on the grimy streets of New York. Her photographs from the '30s and '40s capture the grit and vigor and humor of the city. And she kept on shooting for much of her life."
excerpt from an NPR Interview

Helen Levitt passed 1 year ago this March, Laurence Miller Gallery will begin a month long screening of an extraordinary 15-minute film she made with Janice Loeb and James Agee, "In the Street". It will be open to the public and is free.

I'm sure there will be plenty of her work around the city this coming month so look for it.

20 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

A movie about dolphins at "The Cove"

If you haven't seen it yet, or heard of it:
Dolphins arguably are the largest, non-human, brained mammal.

Dolphins communicate through language.

Dolphins have been know to save the lives of humans, sailors drowning have attributed the aid of a dolphin in their survival.

Dolphin meat is sold, loaded with toxic chemicals in place of whale meat and to school children.

A flipper look-a-like sells for $150,000.00

During the Greek era, harming a Dolphin was punishable by death.

In Japan, at a Nature Reserve called the cove, the slaughter of thousands of dolphins is occurring. Their cries for help and their massacre was covertly filmed and recorded by evading the police, hidden cameras, unmanned helicopters and with countless hours spent hiding on the edge of a cliff.

"But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling -- and the consequences are so dangerous to human health -- they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it."

This movie has won almost everywhere award available to Documentary film making

http://thecovemovie.com/

Music tonight-Dafnis Prieto in NY

Tonight Tuesday 2-23-10
Rose Live Music
345 Grand Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

The Proverb Trio with Dafnis Prieto on drums, Kokayi on vocals and Jason Lindner on Keyboard.

Dafnis Prieto's revolutionary drumming technique has had a powerful impact on the latin and jazz music scene. He studied at the national school of Music in Havana and by the age of 16 had toured with Carlos Maza, Ramon Valle, and with "Columna B". Most recently he has played along side Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Chico and Arturo O'Farril, Dave Samuels & The Caribbean Jazz project, Michel Camilo, Roy Hargrove, Andrew Hill and many more.

He has performed at an array of renowned venues from the Lincoln Center and the Whitney Museum to the Red Sea Jazz festival.

This should be an great opportunity to see him in an intimate setting

Dafnis Prieto's website