Solo Foundation Art House from Art Battles on Vimeo.

This Pop Up Gallery exhibition of one of a kind originals will feature a live and silent auction starting at pricing that can be found at the ArtBattles Popup Gallery. ArtBattles will showcase large-scale works created by rising stars and painters from the US, France, and Spain. The Popup Gallery exhibit also includes Live Art and a video installation.
ArtBattles founder Sean Bono said that the pieces being auctioned were made in a series of battles over a course of 6 months and reflect the unique artistic cultures found all over Europe and the US. All featured works were painted live, on stage, in front of hundreds and sometimes thousands of viewers. ArtBattles curated 300 pieces from the most exciting artists who participated in their international competitions.
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All pieces are available for sale on site and can also be found in the ArtBattles Gallery.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
US: Andre Trenier, Max (Mega 330) Bode, Zito, Don Rimx, Max Neutra, Michael Pukac, Beast, Ben Angotti, Sean Bono, Lexi Bella, Marthalicia Mattarita, Dirty Duke, Yatika Starr Fields, Kevin Ragnott, Gia Gutierrez, Erin Cadigan, Gregory Siff.
Spain: El Niño de Las Pinturas, Kram, Japon, 3TTMan, Paria,Daniel Thomas, Pichi & Avo, Sakristan.
France: Deuz, MattB, Kouka, Shane, Skio, Titi from Paris, Michael Beerens, Monsta, Move.
Exhibition space has been provided by PopUpSpaceNY.

curated by Maria Scarpini

Opening reception Tuesday January 10, 2012
5:30 – 7:00 PM
Upstairs at the Cornelia Street Cafe

For those of us at Solo Foundation who worked with her, Célia Cooke was an inspiration in her dedication presenting the work of her husband Jed Distler and scores of New York composers through Composers Collaborative.

CCi’s co-founder Célia Cooke was also an artist in her own right. To mark the 25th Anniversary of Composers Collaborative, Cornelia Street Cafe will exhibit Célia’s Polaroid photographs, curated by the Italian/New York-based artist Maria Scarpini. The exhibit will be on display during the month of January.

Curator’s Statement by Maria Scarpini

Although Célia Cooke (January 22 1948-March 30 2011) studied and won awards for art and design in college, she never pursued a professional career in the visual arts. Yet from her mid-20s until a few years before her death at 63, she persistently and passionately took Polaroid photos. She left behind more than 1200 photos that, in many ways, represent a leitmotif of her life.

Her Polaroids ranged from casual snapshots taken during travels to elaborate set-ups featuring little toy animals, glassware, kitchen implements, and all sorts of mundane objects. Apparently she positioned them with a patience and concentration that bordered on the obsessive. As I went through Célia’s body of work, one thing always emerged as a constant interest: the quality of light and shadow and their power of transfiguring the world around us.

Through her Polaroid camera’s kaleidoscopic lens, Célia explored different themes: her own body, her home, the man with whom she shared her life and space, the remains of everyday life, and, of course, her constructed still-life scenarios. Yet all the situations she portrays somehow seem like accidental yet necessary gateways that enabled her to chase, reach or simply create the world she needed to see, a desired world. As any artist, she chased her own desire.

Interestingly, Célia’s hand often appears in the constructed scenarios. as if to reach or interact within the scene, yet never quite succeeding in doing so, or in a gesture of longing, as if the scene was escaping from her. This part of herself breaking into the scene seems to have the function of a bridge between two worlds, the here and now outside the frame where also us, the spectators are positioned and the desired world, or better the world of desire on the other side.

Only two booklets of photos she put together explicitly testify of her narrative intention. One of the two explores the body and the environment in a much darker atmosphere, almost solid and ink dyed far from the warm afternoon light of most of her pictures – a possible new direction of her work.

Choosing among hundreds of photos was not easy. However, with my selections I tried to represent the variety of genres and subjects that she explored in her work.

Join us on January 10, and raise a glass to honor a woman who helped bring new works and new collaborations into being, and left her gentle, vibrant mark on the New York new music scene.
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All sales of photographs to benefit Composers Collaborative, Inc.

About Cornelia Street Cafe

Hats on a Rack – 2012

We look forward to working with all our artists on new and exciting projects.

The new year brings a new website, new friends and new projects in New York and Boston.

Thanks to the generous donors who continue to support our work.

An Exhibition at CHASHAMA 217
217 East 42nd Street btw 2nd & 3rd Ave
New York, New York

Opening: December 29th 7:30pm-11:30pm
Reception: December 30th 7:30pm-11:30pm

Artist Kenneth E. Parris III, has been on tour with members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for two years documenting their final world tour through a series of drawings. Focusing on what happens on the road before and after performances, “104 Work Weeks” is a tribute to the final generation of dancers trained by Merce Cunningham and the journey embarked on together.

Exhibition runs from December 29th-January 10th
Gallery hours M-F 12pm-7pm
For appointment contact: +1 917 859 3856

For more details visit: www.parris3.com
www.chashama.org/event/100

“I’m fascinated by what drives people to get out of bed and to push the Sisyphean boulder up the hill again and again,” Parris said in a recent interview. “Under the patina of grace and glamour, there lies a working-class ethic. These dancers work together everyday on and off stage and it is inspiring to see people contributing to something that is bigger than themselves.”

Six months ago, Parris was invited by The New York Times to post one drawing per week to the ArtsBeat Blog for an ongoing series titled Drawing Dance. This exhibition will also be the first opportunity to see these original drawings. Trend Hunter Art & Design writes, “Like Caravaggio before him, Parris is a master of two dimensional cinematic lighting, which lends an undeniable sense of drama to the mundane.” This exhibit is supported in part by a space grant from chashama (www.chashama.org)

THE INAUGURAL ANNUAL WASSAIC PROJECT
HOLIDAY CHEER MIXER & ART MATCHER

**New Artist Videos online about 4 of our Silent Auction Artists! Check them out HERE. They are all Artists in Residence from 2011.

Details of Silent Auction works by Karl LaRocca, Ghost of a Dream, and Amanda Tiller – preview the works HERE.

Silent Auction Artists // Joshua Frankel, Patrick Gantert, Ghost of a Dream, Jeila Gueramian, Sarah Hardesty, Janine Iversen, Karl LaRocca, Masako Miki, Sarah Nicole Phillips, Kristen Schiele, Amanda Tiller, Breanne Trammell & Bowie Barnett-Zunino, Tricky Walsh, Chloe Watson, James Weingrod — preview works and place RESERVE BIDS HERE

Just Added!! Gabriela Vainsencher, Amy Podmore, Michelle Leftheris, Lisa Iglesias

5×7 Artists // Ian Trask, Karen Hesse Flatow, Caitlin Berrigan, Grant Cornett, Audra Wolowiec, Daniel Glendening, Jackie Mock, Jing Yu, Lorne Blythe, Mary Lydecker, River Jukes-Hudson, Shepard McCallum, Virginia Lavado, Hope Gangloff, Jeff Barnet-Winsby, Dana Bunker, DADDY, Eve Biddle, Bowie Barnett-Zunino, Diane Schapira, Josh Bricker, John Delk, Richard Deon, Pamela Council

Benefit Committee // Scott Anderson & Jeila Gueramian, Elan Bogarin, Tess Bricker, Nicholas Cohn, Cherie Aarts Coley, Charlie Davidson, Danielle Durchslag, Simon & Kara Gerson, Eric Gleason, Liliana Greenfield-Sanders, Suzanne Hader, Sarah Hardesty, Emma Katz, Steven Kim, Kate Kittredge, Andrew O’Laughlin, Jessica Shaefer, Callie Siegel & Nate Guild, Brian Wane, James Weingrod, Damian & Britt Zunino

Arleen began her influence through A’s – an interdisciplinary loft space that became a hub for music, exhibitions, performance art and films. A hotbed of experimentation, A’s featured works from then unknowns Sonic Youth, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Bogosian, Glenn Branca, Shirin Neshat, Phoebe Legere, Sur Rodney Sur, Ai WeiWei and Alan Suiclde.

Arleen gained attention as a critically acclaimed performance artist in the 1970s. The New York Times noted that her “performance art was superior to most performance art,” and the SoHo News compared her voice to Yoko Ono’s and Patti Smith’s.

WEDNESDAYS AT A’S explores how Arleen’s art work evolved and changed with the times. Through exclusive never before seen archival footage shot by Arleen herself, mixed with interviews with people from the scene, we trace her life story and see – from her point of view- how New York City has changed from the 1970’s to present day.

Solo filmmaker Stuart Ginsberg is in post production and are looking for finishing funds to transfer footage, buy equipment and hire an editor. Contributions may be made via Kickstarter or through Paypal .

www.wednesdaysmovie.com

Harvard Business School students Lisa Plimpton, Tiffany Kung, Kelsey Kennedy and Srikanth Batchu with Timothy Ney

A team of students at Harvard Business School are assisting the Solo Foundation in evaluating our strategy and service offerings, interviewing Solo artists and identifying existing gaps that need to be addressed. The Harvard students were recruited by Timothy Ney, who leads Solo’s digital strategy and community arts launch in Boston.

Originally founded as The French Studio of Performing Arts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Solo Foundation has served the needs of start-up arts organizations for more than thirty years.

Looking toward 2012 and beyond, we face a challenge in maintaining close personal relationships with our artists, documenting our governance procedures, adding staff and leveraging social media, crowd funding and digital distribution to build audiences and bring resources to our programs.

It is clear that the writing is on the wall as we have been approached by more potential fiscal sponsorees than we have the capacity to handle. In organizing a new redesign of our website, we found at Solo Foundation that only a small number of our client artists have knowledge and skills in utilizing social media and the Internet for public relations, outreach and fundraising.

After conducting a Needs Assessment of the organization and researching the art services and social media fields, the Harvard team will deliver a Strategic and Operational Plan to Solo President Howie Seligman and the Board of Directors in Spring of 2012.

Director of Photography Dan Finlayson (left) with DJ’s Aries Deng and Nick (IRON FIST) Zeigler of Universal Skratch Assassinz arrive at Strand Theatre in Dorchester today for film shoot.

Under the direction of Tim Ney, dancers from the Dorchester Youth Collaborative in Massachusetts and a film crew from Emerson College are redefining Hip Hop this weekend in the historic Strand Theatre . Four Berklee College DJs, Aries Deng, Kevin Luu, Maurice Boyton and Nick Zeigler, spin the sounds for the film production which is being audio engineered by Phoebe Danskin and Jason Bitner. Theater students from MIT and Wellesley College enrolled in Anna Kohler’s Acting class are assisting in the production.

Interview of Music Man James Ardery & Footage of Cropped Out by M Sarki