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August 11, 2008
Roebling Hall Announces Fall 2008 Season
Roebling Hall is Pleased to announce their Fall 2008 Season.
Opening on 4 September, 2008 is: ALL CUT UP Curated by Rita de Alencar Pinto
Opening on 9 October, 2008 Christoph Draeger - The End of the Remake
Opening on 13 November, 2008 Erik Benson - New Works
Roebling Hall will also be Exhibiting at the 5th Edition of the Zoo Art Fair in London 17–20 October, 2008 at the Royal Academy of Arts, 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3EX
We will also be exhibiting at the Nada Art Fair in Miami, December 3-7, 2008 at The Ice Palace, 1400 North Miami Avenue(corner of North Miami Avenue and NW 14th Street) Miami, FL 33136
July 18, 2008
David Ellis Review in New York Times
Roberta Smith Reviews David Ellis' Dozens in the New York Times.
The work in David Ellis’s latest show alternates between routine and ingenious, and ingenious invariably involves sound and motion. This is not surprising: Mr. Ellis excels at percussion, animation and the form of action painting known as Graffiti Art; he also has a tendency to build idiosyncratic musical instruments. (For this show he collaborated with the musician Roberto Lang.) For example, “Heap” is a very large pile of trash from Brooklyn and Manhattan that regularly bursts into gadget-driven drumming. Paint cans, spackle buckets, aluminum beams and tinfoil are among the noise-makers and they’re all miked. “Ok Superman” is a reinterpretation of a player piano, which plays Laurie Anderson’s classic performance piece “O Superman” — albeit quite faintly — using small fans directed at a series of empty wine bottles; its moving parts also include a computer that prints out the song’s lyrics in the shape of the airborne action hero’s S-logo.
The tour de force occupies a separate space: “FAMS 1 (Fine Art Moving and Storage)” is one of Mr. Ellis’s exhilarating stop-action painting performances which uses the floor as the canvas and is shot from above. During this 10-minute work, Mr. Ellis and the occasional assistant transform the floor with rapid-fire sequences of cartoons, speech balloons, graffiti lettering (words like okay, fly and see) and abstraction (geometric, monochrome and swirling deluges of color). A signature design of billowing lines that Mr. Ellis calls “flow” recurs repeatedly. A high point is a splash of blue paint that eventually evolves into a peacock. The catchy percussive soundtrack is provided by a series of paint trays, bottles, cans, paint buckets and paintbrushes, miked like the trash in “Heap,” but arranged in orderly fashion in their own shipping crates.
Two less ambitious videos and a mass of large drawings in which the flow motif swirls across collages of letters and manuals pertaining to the construction of the work in the show are handsome but understandably inert. His best efforts operate in terrain populated at various points by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Tim Hawkinson, Tom Friedman, Jon Kessler, Christian Marclay, Aaron Young and Ian Burns. His particular kind of Rube Golbergian, street-wise Guy Art veers closer to pure entertainment than any of his neighbors, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of the running. ROBERTA SMITH
June 5, 2008
Reviews and Coverage of David Ellis' Dozens
Don't Miss David Ellis's Show at The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh.
Inner Outer SpaceHere some links to recent coverage of David Ellis' current show Dozens.
June 3, 2008
Erik Benson, Eve Sussman, and Reynold Reynolds Recieve 2008 NYFA Fellowships
Three Roebling Hall Artists were named as 2008 Fellows this year. Of the 144 Artists selected, Brooklyn produced the most winners, for the second time in the Fellowship's 23 year history. Erik Benson was a fellow in painting. Reynold Reynolds in Video, and Eve Sussman also in Video was the Norton Family Foundation Fellow. For a complete Press Release of fellows please see the NYFA Website.
March 27, 2008
David Ellis - Flyway at Theory Clothing Store
Theory Icon Project Commission
David Ellis: Flyway
New York, New York. The Theory Icon Project commissions artist David Ellis for a week long painting performance, March 27 through April 3. Ellis will paint every day from 11am until 7pm in the Theory store at 38 Gansevoort Street, New York City. Ellis has built an airplane hangar inspired structure for the store in which he will paint. The entire process will be captured in stop frame animation that Ellis calls Motion Painting.
A digital camera installed overhead inside the structure is programmed to take bird’s-eye-view images of the artist at work on a large canvas laid out on the floor below. The digital stills are then compiled as video sequences, and scored by a composer who is on site for the entire week of the performance. The resulting compilation, entitled Baker’s, is a fast-forward explosion of the evolving imagery in time-lapse. The time-based sequence becomes as much the work of art as the painted canvas. The final work is installed on the wall as a diptych image, painted canvas and motion painting in conversation with each another. The result is an exploration of the relationship between “art” and process.
David Ellis: Flyway includes the in-store painting performance from March 27 through April 3 and the world premiere of Baker’s, the time-lapse video presented with a live score by Roberto Carlos Lange on April 8. To celebrate the Baker’s premiere, Ellis plans a special performance of Hell's Angel vs. DJ RoyOwl a percussive battle between Ellis's newest kinetic drum sculpture and DJ JTram assuming the alter ego of RoyOwl.
David Ellis has been included in a variety of prestigious group exhibitions both in the United States, and abroad. His motion painting videos have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The in-store painting performance takes place March 27-April 3 from 11am to 7pm. The Painting and the motion painting video will be exhibited April 9 through June 2, 2008 in the Theory Gansevoort store. Both the performance and installation are free and open to the public. The April 8th evening event, including the world premiere of Baker’s and the percussive cockfight, is invitation only.
Contact: Melissa G. Weiss
melissaw@theory.com
Tel. 212.300.0945
March 19, 2008
Lane Twitchell Review - Artnet.com
Charlie Finch writes a review for Artnet of Lane Twitchell's show, Leap with Me.
Check out the review HERE
February 29, 2008
Upcoming Exhibition: Doug Young and Lane Twitchell
Roebling Hall is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition 'One Soft Infested Summer', new works by sculptor Doug Young. In addition, on display in the project room will be, 'Leap with Me' new works by painter Lane Twitchell.
January 31, 2008
Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation - Upcoming Screenings
January 31st –May 4th, 2008 The Rape of the Sabine Women will be part of Adaptations curated by Stephanie Smith at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.
January 31st - March 31st, 2008 The Rape of the Sabine Women will be part of PAC Murcia: Estartos curated by Nicolas Bourriaud in Murcia, Spain.
January 25, 2008
NEW YORK CITY'S ARTISTIC COMMUNITY UNDER ATTACK
JANUARY 24, 2008 PRESS RELEASE: FROM: 475 Kent Tenants Association
MATZO-GATE
NEW YORK CITY'S ARTISTIC COMMUNITY UNDER ATTACK
The live-work building located at 475 Kent Ave in Brooklyn's coveted waterfront neighborhood of Williamsburg was issued a Vacate Order by the NYC Fire Department on Sunday, January 20th at 7:30PM, the day before Martin Luther King day. Tenants were given until 1:30 in the morning to leave the building on a frigid January night.
475 Kent is a microcosm of New York City's cultural and economic activity with creative professionals generating an estimated $15 million in annual revenue. The vibrant community of 200 working artists - photographers, architects, writers, musicians, sculptors, filmmakers, designers, painters, printmakers, etc. is under attack.
It seems that the D.O B. is intent on making sure people will never be able to return to their spaces until all repairs are made and the building has a residential C of O, a prospect that could take years and millions of dollars. This renders 200 inhabitants most of whom are self-employed, small business entrepreneurs, both homeless and out of work. This building has been consistently and viably supporting creative professionals lives and businesses for ten years. The illegal eviction at 475 Kent comes on the heels of the evacuation of 17-17 Troutman in Ridgewood. That people's livelihoods and homes are being put in complete jeopardy makes one wonder if this is a trend and begs the phrase “follow the money”.
The events on Sunday night were precipitated when the FDNY inspected the basement of 475 Kent Ave. and “discovered” two 10' diameter metal canisters (containing grain used for making Matzo. The Matzo bakery has been in the building for more than ten years. The DOB and fire department have inspected 475 Kent Avenue regularly for the past ten years and would have had to be blind if they were not fully aware of the existence of a Matzo bakery and the grain. The presence of the grain resulted in a so-called “hazardous emergency” situation that gave FDNY and DOB license to vacate the building. When some residents and the landlord offered to alleviate the problem and remove the grain from the building on Sunday night the FDNY replied “you are not qualified to move the grain”. They then issued the vacate order.
What ensued was unmitigated chaos under the direction of our friends at the OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANGEMENT starring the New York City Fire Department, Department of Buildings, NYPD, Health Department, Department of Agriculture and the Red Cross. Their only area of competence was at holding closed-door, inter-agency meetings, in which no tenant representative was allowed, every two hours in their brand new location trailer. How many City agencies does it take to unscrew a lightbulb? We'll let you know, we're still counting.
Upon the issue of the vacate order 200 people scrambled to rid 110 spaces of their most crucial belongings. The following day people were given 6 hours access to remove their belongings, tools and equipment, a scenario that for most people who had been in residence for 5 - 10 years with substantial equipment and installations was completely untenable. From there the scene snowballed. On Tuesday January 22, tenants arrived with moving trucks at 10am having been told they would have another 6 hours access to the building. They found all entrances blocked by NYPD and FDNY and no one was allowed upstairs. Finally, at 1pm the leaders of each agency stood on the staircase and delivered their plan to the crowd: - residents would be allowed into the building six people at a time for one hour, followed by another group of six people each being granted one hour. Do the math. No, we'll do it for you. 200/6= 33.3 hours it would take to allow each person ONE hour access to collect their stuff. Then they shut down the elevators, insuring that the task was impossible. People, in a panic that this would be their last chance to save their belongings, began to carry equipment and valuables down ten flights of stairs, creating a real hazard.
As of Wednesday, January 23, the grain has been removed from the basement of 475 Kent Avenue, alleviating the immediate “hazardous” condition. Now the tenants have been allowed a final three days, six hours a day, to access the building. On Sunday night, January 27, the building will be padlocked prohibiting all further access for the foreseeable future. Why the building is safe enough to access for four days, but suddenly deemed unsafe again on Monday is a mystery to which DOB, OEM, FDNY has not provided an answer. Although requested repeatedly the DOB has never provided a complete list of the violations on the building. We know one of these violations is an inoperable sprinkler system, a problem that can mitigated with the presence of fire-guards while the system is repaired, allowing continued occupancy of the building.
Since the 1960's New York City's tacit urban renewal policy has been reliant on artist's moving into derelict buildings in less desirable neighborhoods. The city does nothing to bolster or support economic activity in these down and out areas, nor do they do anything to create affordable, legal, usable space for live/work entrepreneurs. 475 Kent is a prime example of this kind of turn-a-blind-eye urban renewal that has been a boon to the City of New York. A decade ago South Williamsburg was a dangerous neighborhood. Once artists take the initiative to live on the edge and restore and renew unused real estate in what were marginal areas the City becomes predatory. The transformation of Williamsburg by the artist community into one of New York City's most desirable neighborhoods encourages the city to move artists out as they calculate the tax revenue of luxury condo developers moving in. No one in any city agency cared about our health and safety ten years ago. Now that our building has become hot property the City is ready to muster all the powers of its many agencies to assist in the muscling of the property from the owners and the tenants. The tenants of 475 Kent Avenue call into question the hypocritical policies being put forth by the agencies of the City of New York. We cannot help but wonder what forces are driving this vacate and why the agencies are suddenly so concerned for out health and safety.
475 Kent Tenant's Association
January 17, 2008
Upcoming Exhibition: Ray Smith & Rebecca Horne
Roebling Hall is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of new works by painter Ray Smith and photographer Rebecca Horne.