Thursday, January 30, 2020

In Yonkers New York, catch the First Thursday Gallery Hop!

5:30-7:30 PM
February 6, 2020
Every First Thursday of the Month!

2020 Kick-Off! New Artists, New Exhibitions! 

Be among hundreds of artists and art connoisseurs next Thursday during the Yonkers First Thursday Gallery Hop of 2020! Discover and explore all-new art exhibitions, meet and develop relationships with professional artists, and dine-in at local restaurants, all while learning about the history and community of the City of Yonkers, New York!

Blue Door Art Center is kicking-off 2020 with it's 12th Annual Artist-Member Exhibit, with nearly 50 artists in the same exhibit! The Riverfront Art Gallery is showcasing local artist-in-residence, Shanequa Benitez and her exhibit, Never Conform, expressing Shanequa's embodiment of the beauty of struggle. Urban Studio Unbound & Warburton Galerie announced the opening of their Winter 2020 pARTners Exhibition for Saturday, February 8, but is opening their doors to Gallery Hoppers for a special sneak peek! Their exhibition includes artists from Hewn Arts in Jersey City as their pARTners. Philipse Manor Hall Historic Site introduces artist Art Bonanno and his exhibition, Energy. His exhibition showcases a series of 32 images inspired by the history of the use of energy. The digital artwork series is an abstract interpretation of energy history and is accompanied by an open-source detailed verbal timeline.
Artist: Matt Turov - Sparked Opposites
Blue Door Art Center
13 Riverdale Avenue | Yonkers
The Blue Door Art Center is dedicated to bringing the arts to local communities throughout Westchester that are currently under-served by art programs and exhibition venues. We do this through exhibitions in our gallery, educational programs, workshops, public art projects, poetry readings, performances, and special events.
Exhibition: 12th Annual Artist-Member Exhibition

Please join us at Blue Door during February’s First Thursday Gallery Hop to get a taste of our current show, “12th Annual Artist-Member Exhibition”. Enjoy the artworks of almost 50 local artists and feel free to have a glass of wine and light refreshments. See you there!

Featured Artists: Jill Austen, Stacy Bogdonoff, Daniel Boyer, Kathryn Buckley, Dorothy Cancellieri, Nan Cao, Chris Chalfant, Demitria Chano, Doris Cordero, Julie Cousens, Richela Fabian Morgan, Rea Feriozzi, Evan Freeman, Diane Garofalo, Enrico Giordano, Patricia Gray, Mary Hardiman, Richard Haas, Carol Herd-Rodriguez, Ysabella Hincapié-Gara, Susan Hoeltzel, Deborah Holcombe, David Humphrey, Jonathan Lessuck, Steven Levine, Jacqueline Lorieo, Amanda Lynne, Kathleen McCarthy Udoff, Frances McGuire, Wendy Naidich, Robyne Marcus, Luis Perelman, Alfredo Ponce, Anne Price, Lee Romero, Roman Sheremet, Lily Schor, Arlé Sklar-Weinstein, Pat Slaven, Silvia Soares Boyer, Matthew Spatz, Debora Solomon, Patricia Stuart, Renee Toback, Matthew Turov, Evelyn van der Wyk, Charles Zigmund, Judith Zucker and, more...
Artist: Sergio Barrale/ Goodbye Horses, Acrylic on Wood Panel, 12”x12” (3D Painting)
16 Warburton Avenue | Yonkers
Please note: Warburton Galerie and Urban Studio Unbound have merged.

US+U’s strength of purpose is to combine emerging and mid-career artists in a partnership to embrace a wide range of artistic approaches. This unique relationship creates a community of people who learn from each other through shared ideas and common goals.

Warburton Galerie is a 4000 sq. ft. space dedicated to bringing the public exemplary art exhibitions via collaborations with curators, art advisors and creative organizations. 
Exhibition: Winter 2020 pARTners Exhibition 

US+U/Warburton Galerie is pleased to announce the opening of our Winter 2020 pARTners Exhibition on Saturday, February 8, 2020, from 6:00-9:00 PM. For this exhibition, we welcomed artists from Hewn Arts in Jersey City as our pARTners.

Featured Artists: Michael Alan, David Alge, Sergio Barrale, Demetrio Belenky, Michelle Renee Bernard, Haifa Bint-Kadi, Shane Bullock, Henry Burgos, Monica Carrier, Scott Dennis, Julia Eisen-Lester, Aljoscha Farassat, Karen Gentile, Alan Haywood, Miriam Hendel, Amanda Ioco, Anna Kiljune, Maria Liebana, Amanda Lynn, Nancy Mendez, Nathalie Mercado, Android Oi, Luis Perelman, Alex Pergament, Guy Stanley Philoche, Richard Pitts, Jill Ricci, Bill Ross, Regina Ruff, Gregory Saint Amand, Charles Sommer, Melissa Starke, Tommy the Animator, Ice-T, Michael Vincent, Roddy Wildeman & Stefanie Wolfson. 
Exhibition: Energy

Art Bonanno will be exhibiting selected works from "Energy (Thirty-two images inspired by the history of the use of energy)" at Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers. The digital artwork series is an abstract interpretation of energy history accompanied by a detailed online verbal timeline.
Philipse Manor Hall Gallery
29 Warburton Avenue | Yonkers
Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site serves as a museum of history, art, and architecture, and a host to community organizations, educational programs, and special events.
Featured Artist: Art Bonanno

In addition to his work as a Creative Director, Filmmaker, Designer, Fine Artist and Educator, Mr. Bonanno has been active in the Yonkers community for almost two decades creating video promoting the downtown waterfront development and providing creative services to local energy, sustainable building, theatre, and senior groups.
Exhibition: Never Conform 

Featured Artist: Shanequa Benitez 

Shanequa embodies the beauty of the struggle. She grew up in the housing projects in Yonkers, NY and is now focused on creating art through music, film, and painting. She is also a clothing designer, personal trainer and community activist. Drawing inspiration from Nina Simone and Basquiat, her art is a “reflection of the times” and is a way for her to tell her story her own way. 

Riverfront Art Gallery
Yonkers Public Library 
1 Larkin Center | Yonkers | 4th Floor
The Riverfront Art Gallery exhibits contemporary, nationally, and internationally acclaimed artwork. 

The mission of the gallery is to stimulate and encourage the study and presentation of fine arts and the public’s interest and participation therein; To foster and support the arts in the community and to serve as a portal to the arts for residents and community members; To create opportunities for the public to encounter and explore art that they might not otherwise be exposed to, increasing access to the arts in the City of Yonkers and surrounding communities.
Receive 10% off food and drinks during the First Thursday Gallery Hop. 
Stop by any participating art gallery for the discount code. Participating restaurants include: 

Catinca Tabacaru New York/ Harare: Feb. 1-March 21, 2020.

XAVIER ROBLES DE MEDINA
Faya Lobi


PRAZ DELAVALLADE PARIS
February 1 - March 21, 2020
5 rue des Haudriettes
Vernissage February 1, 5-8pm


Faya Lobi means fiery love, or love of fire.
 
In Suriname, it is the Sranan(1) given name for its national flower, the Ixori coccinea, a flowering plant of South-Indian, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan origins. Other names it is known by are jungle geranium, flame of the woods, or jungle flame. The faya lobi grows abundantly in Suriname, producing flowers all year, as it does in South Asia. In Suriname, faya lobi became a symbol for love, long lasting and ardent passion.

There is a fiery love that burns in the deep heart of the South American jungles. This fire is different from the fires that have burned down and deforested the Amazon
(2) – it exists intrinsically, and is passed down to those born in the lineage of resistance. In the northeast Amazon basin, a fiery love welcomed the Ndyuka, now descendants of marooned slaves who for four centuries continuously build resistance and sanctuaries(3).

A fiery love– young, revolutionary, resistant, urgent, educated, communal, organized, and united– was living in the bodies of fifteen men
(4) who opposed the military dictatorship of Suriname in the 1980s. On December 7, 8 and 9, 1982 in Paramaribo, Suriname, these fifteen men were captured by the militarized forces of the dictatorship, and taken to Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo, where they were tortured and killed for opposing the military regime.

A statue of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands stands in front of Fort Zeelandia; in 1974, she was moved away where she used to stand in front of the Governor’s Palace (now the Presidential Palace), and was replaced with a sculpture of Jopie Pengel by Stuart Robles de Medina. In the archive of the Surinaams Museum exists a photograph of Stuart and a colleague guiding the rope-bound sculpture of Queen Wilhelmina down into her present resting place4. The Queen and Fort Zeelandia mark the land– here lies the brutal failure of empire. Violent structures we deem to be permanent are often rotting and fragile inside, and they can be easily torn down, moved away from the center, if we mobilize and tend to our fiery love.

In Xavier Robles de Medina’s exhibition, Faya Lobi, there is a drawing of this photograph of his grandfather and his colleague while the statue of Queen Wilhelmina is being placed in front of Fort Zeelandia. Xavier’s work is a slow excavation, or rather: a conjuring, a resuscitation, a long and extended dedication. I have seen Xavier working; his drawing process is slow and determined. In our conversations, he says he is mostly erasing away. From seeing the way the images progress, it feels like coming upon a clearing after a long dim-lit path. There is a trust in the process, a love for the subject, faith that eventually all will be revealed. I think of the ways we honor and carry our ancestors. We carry (knowingly or not) their promises and efforts to the land, the weights they carried and lifted for us, the paths they cleared for our eventual existence. Sometimes, serendipitously, we will find ourselves tracing their steps and continuing their legacy.

It takes love to excavate our history with kindness. To transform our relationship with a ground that has witnessed so much violence. To kiss the earth and swear devotion to a longevity that lasts beyond our lifetime. 
With a fiery love,

Paula Pinho Martins Nacif
1 Creole language spoken in Suriname.
2 Most recently, the Amazon rainforest burned for two weeks in August 2019.
3 “In these villages ‘obeah shrines like those in Guinea can be seen, ceremonial dances are performed that could take place in Ghana, and the people talk with drums, which are made like Ashanti drums.’», Philip Reno, The Ordeal of British Guiana cited in Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 83.
4 John Baboeram, Bram Behr, Cyrill Dvaal, Kenneth Gonçalves, Eddy Hoost, André Kamperveen, Gerard Leckie, Sugrim Oemrawsingh, Lesley Rahman, Surendre Rambocus, Harold Riedewald, Jiwansingh Sheombar, Jozef Slagveer, Robby Sohansingh, and Frank Wijngaarde.
Image: Xavier Robles de Medina, Faya Lobi installation at Praz Delavallade | Paris, 2020
#fireylove#fineratmagazine#fun

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Learning From Sweden: An Exhibition of Yale Urban Design Research at the House of Sweden in DC, Feb. 1-28, 2020



Learning From Sweden:
An Exhibition of Yale Urban Design Research at the Embassy of Sweden, Feb. 1-28, 2020

Following a multi-year academic engagement with Gothenburg, Sweden, urban research and design proposals developed by students and faculty of the Yale School of Architecture will be on display at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, D.C. from February 1-28, 2020 in the exhibition Learning from Sweden. Älvstranden Utveckling AB and the School of Architecture at Chalmers University have been partners in the effort.
Learning From Sweden Opening Reception
Friday, February 7, 2020, 6pm
House of Sweden
2900 K Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
RSVP Link (space is limited)
Work from two graduate-level summer research programs and an advanced design studio taught by Professor Alan Plattus and Critic Andrei Harwell, along with a research and design proposal developed by the Yale Urban Design Workshop for research consortium Fusion Point, range from detailed analysis and description of Gothenburg’s distinctive urban form and architectural typologies, to proposals which address some of the most urgent issues reshaping contemporary cities, including climate change and resilience, the food production and supply chain, mobility, public health, adaptation to post- or neo-industrial economies, and social equity issues such as access to housing, jobs, recreation and education.

Students in the two summer courses taught in Gothenburg, based at and in collaboration with the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Chalmers Technological University, were asked to engage in close readings of a series of characteristic neighborhoods and areas in Gothenburg. The task was to produce a “thick description” of the urban fabric and its components, with the aim of developing a deep knowledge of Gothenburg’s structure and characteristics, and how they relate to social, ecological and economic systems.  One seminar focused on characteristic areas of expansion for specific historical periods, while the second focused on knowledge creation areas of the city.

These seminars, along with seminars planned for 2020 and 2021, contribute to the ongoing development at Yale School of Architecture of an Urban Atlas of Gothenburg, a document that can serve as a model for the wider study of other northern European cities undergoing parallel transitions from a maritime and industrial economy to the local and global networks of knowledge production and culture associated with contemporary urbanism. This Urban Atlas, on display in the exhibition, can also serve as a reference for city agencies charged with guiding the redevelopment of the riverfront, including Lindholmen, a former shipyard in downtown Gothenburg.
The advanced design studio, taught by Plattus and Harwell in Fall 2019, builds on the Urban Atlas and examines Lindholmen as a central node in the city, challenging students to develop critical design proposals for multiple areas of the city, understood as components of the larger urban region as well as European and global networks. A range of these proposals will be exhibited as part of Learning from Sweden, including ideas for ocean farming, affordable housing, and new community services.
The last component of the show, "DesignCase Lindholmen: From Science Park to Science City" is an initiative undertaken by the Yale Urban Design Workshop for industry-academic research group Fusion Point, with the with the goal of modeling best practices in the development of design concepts and processes for sustainable, resilient and inclusive urban design. The next phase of development of the Lindholmen area of Gothenburg is taken as a case study, although one important goal of the exercise is to consider any particular site at scales ranging from the building, to public open space and infrastructure, to the entire River City development zone, to the City and its region. Proposals for Lindholmen and South Lindholmen are included as part of the exhibition.    
All of this work stands within an evolving Yale School of Architecture tradition of “learning from” less-studied aspects and sites in the built environment, going back to the famous 1972 design studio, “Learning from Las Vegas,” conducted by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, and Steven Izenour. Like that studio, the current Yale work in Gothenburg represents an ongoing commitment to develop innovative pedagogical approaches that produce new design knowledge and expertise through an initial focus on the specificity of local place and culture, and then to communicate and apply that knowledge on the broadest global scale. The openness and generosity of institutions and people in Sweden, and importantly their shared commitment to developing sustainable, just and livable cities, has made this work possible and productive. During 2019, the Embassy of Sweden has focused on a theme called “Smart Societies—Creative & Inclusive” and this exhibition and seminar will be the final event in a series of activities around the United States.
About the Yale School of Architecture
The mission of the Yale School of Architecture is to educate architects, scholars, teachers, and leaders who will shape the future through design. Located in New Haven, Connecticut the School offers professional and post-professional architecture degrees as well as the interdisciplinary Master of Environmental Design; it also supports an undergraduate architecture major and a Ph.D. program. The Yale School of Architecture is home to the Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, the first design-build program at an American school of architecture, and Perspecta, the oldest student-edited architectural journal in the United States. 

https://www.architecture.yale.edu/

About the Yale Urban Design Workshop
The Yale Urban Design Workshop and Center for Urban Design Research (YUDW) provides a forum for faculty and students from the School of Architecture and other professional schools at Yale to engage in the study of issues, ideas, and practical problems in the field of urban design. Since its founding in 1992, the YUDW has worked with communities across the state of Connecticut and around the world, providing planning and design assistance on projects ranging from comprehensive plans, economic development strategies, and community visions to the design of public spaces, streetscapes, and individual community facilities.

https://udw.architecture.yale.edu/

About House of Sweden:
House of Sweden is home to the Embassy of Sweden´s public diplomacy theme programs. Inaugurated in 2006 and designed by award-winning architects Tomas Hansen and Gert Wingårdh, House of Sweden is a testament to transparency, accountability, and openness—key values in Swedish society.
https://www.houseofsweden.com/