It’s already the final weekend of the Arts Festival, so I thought I’d highlight some of the events being held today and tomorrow.

Saturday, June 21
-Pittsburgh Playworks: Professionally staged readings of plays by Pittsburgh playwrights; 1pm at 937 Liberty Avenue
-panPittsburgh: Steel drums @ the Community Stage, 2-4pm
-Opek, Good Brother Earl and the Avett Brothers will be performing at 6, 6:30, 7:30 respectively

Sunday, June 22
-Pittsburgh Rocks! Battle of the Bands @ the Market Square stage from 2-5pm
-Dreams of Hope: a gay/straight performing arts group @ the Community Stage, 5:15
-Mystic Knights and Alejandro Escovedo closing out the night at the Main Stage, 5pm and 6pm

Come check out all of the amazing artwork and goods for sale in the artists market, as well as the exhibits located around downtown. I recommend visiting the Contained exhibit on Forbes Avenue by Market Square, especially the Zen Room, which was a peaceful way to spend my day volunteering at the Festival.

For more informations, visit their website here.

I also wanted to mention the Barack Obama bake sale at Zombo Gallery in Lawrenceville that’s taking place tomorrow from noon-4pm. Zombo will be djing and the proceeds will go to moveon.org’s Obama presidential fund.

While you’re there, you can also check out their Attack of the Pittsburgh Tattoo Artists exhibit, where Pittsburgh’s finest tattoo artists have displayed their wildest works of art. Objects include skateboards, paintings, sculptures and more. The show closes on June 29th, so hurry this is the perfect opportunity to see it while it lasts!

Zombo Gallery is located at 4900 Hatfield Street in Lawrenceville.

Check out my previous post for other going-ons at the Arts Festival I left out in this post.

Pittsburgh, art, Arts Festival, music, Zombo Gallery, Lawrenceville, Obama

Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild Youth and Arts is presenting an interesting exhibit, titled “From Violence to Vision.” The exhibit features the work of the guild’s first group of Arts Leadership and Public Service interns (more about the guild below).

The exhibit focuses on an important social issue and according to their press release, one of eight ALPS interns with work in the exhibition, Adriane Hairston, a rising senior at CAPA high school, is excited to participate in activism through art for her first time: “As a group, we [ALPS interns] decided to address violence through this exhibition because it is an issue that has affected all of us, despite our various backgrounds and experiences.

The press release also described the work done by the MCG Youth and Arts:

In collaboration with the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) and with support from various grants, foundations and individual donations, MCG Youth & Arts is a center for arts and learning that serves approximately 2,000 unique students in grades K–12 annually. Students may participate in courses in various media including ceramics, photography, design and digital arts; career and college exposure activities; and workshops with internationally renowned artists who also exhibit work at MCG’s galleries. Additionally, MCG Youth & Arts hosts a number of educational opportunities for principals, teachers and the community, and offers public access to its two galleries at no cost. All programs are implemented by professional working artists, and maintain an 8:1 student:teacher ratio in order to provide students the attention they need to succeed. MCG is a subsidiary of Manchester Bidwell Corporation.

“From Violence to Vision” is on view through July 6th at MCG’s satellite gallery at 800 Penn Avenue. There is also a silent auction of exhibition pieces and the sale of student-designed advocacy pins. There is a free reception this Friday the 20th, from 5:30-8pm at the gallery.

A portion of all proceeds made during the exhibition will go to the Center for Victims of Violence and Crime (CVVC). Supported by a grant from the New York-based Surdna Foundation, the ALPS internship is part of MCG’s Apprenticeship Training Program after-school arts courses.

Through nationally recognized and acclaimed year-round programs, MCG Youth & Arts strives to educate, inspire and promote continuance to higher education by engaging students in learning through the arts.

For more information on the Manchester Guild visit their website here or contact Brittany Colatrella, Communications Coordinator, MCG Youth & Arts, 412-322-1773 Ext. 378.

Don’t forget the Arts Festival is still going on until this Sunday. Visit my previous post to see what you’ve been missing!

Pittsburgh, Manchester Craftsmen Guild, Penn Avenue, art, exhibit

It’s already the second week of the festival, so I figured now is as good as time as any to talk about this great event. The festival is still being held downtown around the Gateway Plaza/PPG Plaza/Market Square area and runs until June 22nd. Here’s just some of the highlights of this weekend’s events:

Friday, June 13th
-Maceo Parker! The legendary jazz singer is presenting on the Main Stage at 7:30pm
-Take Me Out, Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning play @ Navarra, 131 7th Street, 8pm, $10
-The Unintended, a play exposing the present situation of Afghani refugees in Pakistan @ 937 Liberty Avenue, 8pm, $5
-Omega Love is playing at Market Square @ 9:30pm

Saturday, June 14th
-Magarac Attack opening and artist party in Market Square; a folk-themed celebration with participating artists, 4-6 pm
-The Curve Ball @ Navarra, 6pm, $35; exclusive cocktail reception and admission to the 8pm performance of Take Me Out for Pittsburgh’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community
-Phoebe Snow and special guest Gemini @ the Main Stage, 6:30pm

Sunday, June 15th
-Celtic Spirit Highland Dancers of Pittsburgh @ Community Stage, 12:30pm
-Attack Theatre’s The Heist @ the Contained Exhibition (Forbes Avenue), 5:30pm
-NY Dolls! with special guest the Takeover UK @ the Main Stage, 6:30pm

I’ve been volunteering at the festival since last week and I can say that so far, there’s been a really good turnout, great artists and some amazing music, so come on out!

For more information on performances, scheduling and more, check out their website here.

And if you can’t make it out to the festival this weekend, maybe you can catch the Life on Mars exhibit I previously talked about that’s happening at the Carnegie Museum.

Pittsburgh, Three Rivers Arts Festival, downtown, art, music, Maceo Parker, NY Dolls

Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, explores the important, yet continually perplexing, question of what it means to be human in the world today. Each artist brings a unique outlook to the question of humanity’s response to a world in which global events challenge and seem to threaten our everyday existence. Included in the exhibition will be some 200 works in diverse media, from painting, sculpture, and drawing to animation, film, installation, and performance.

“For the first time in 112 years the exhibition has a title other than Carnegie International,” said Fogle. “Life on Mars is very much a poetic gesture in terms of thinking about our place in the universe as humans. Are we alone in the universe? Do aliens exist? Or are we, ourselves, the strangers in our own worlds? To me contemporary art is as much about coming to terms with our own world as it is about creating a set of worlds parallel to those that we walk in everyday. The thematic premise behind the show has to do with the idea of the intimate moments in our daily life that we miss by walking through our worlds and not seeing what is right in front of us. It also has to do with the more infinite sense of being part of the larger universe and finding ourselves on the inside and looking out. All of the artists participating in the 2008 Carnegie International have been chosen because their work conveys this sensibility.”

The exhibit features the work of 40 artists representing 17 countries all with their own interpretation of the world we live in today.

The Carnegie Museum is located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in Oakland.

Visit the exhibit’s website to learn more about times, ticket prices and artists involved in the show.

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekends and enjoyed some of the events I posted last week.

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum, Life on Mars, art, global, awareness, Oakland

Phipps Conservatory’s May Market is this weekend!

Shop for various garden plants and gardening tools, as well special green items, like eco-pots made from recycled grain husks. There will also be local experts on hand to answer all of your gardening questions and a special presentation by nationally syndicated gardening expert, Joe Lamp’l. If you are interested in listening to Lamp’l speak, you should rsvp for the talk by calling 412-441-4442 x 3803. There is no charge for the presentation or any other event taking place at the May Market.

The event takes place all weekend at Phipps Garden Center:

May 16th: 10am-7pm with local experts Q and A from noon-4pm
May 17th: 10am-7pm with Joe Lamp’l from 10:30-11:30 am and special presentation at 12:30
May 18th: 10am-5pm

Phipps Garden Center is located at 1059 Shady Avenue in Oakland. For more information, visit their website here.

Also going on this weekend is the 52nd annual Pittsburgh Folk Festival!

Join in on a multi-cultural celebration this weekend at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. There will be more than 30 nationalities represented in the form of ethnic entertainment, food, shopping and more.

Festival hours are as follows:
Friday: 4pm-10pm
Saturday: 12-10pm
Sunday: 12-6pm

Tickets purchased in advance are $8 for adults (13 and over), children (4-12) and free for children under 4. Tickets purchased at the door cost an extra $2 for adults only.

Check out the Folk Festival’s website for more info on performance times, parking and contact information.

And if you can still find the time, don’t forget to check out my previous post listing Saturday’s local events.

Pittsburgh, Phipps Garden Center, May Market, gardening, Folk Festival, David L. Lawrence Convention Center

For those of you not local to or frequent visitors of Oakland, now is your chance to further explore this great little area of Pittsburgh.

This Saturday come out to experience A Taste of Oakland; for only $5 you can tour more than 20 businesses, as well as sample local food and refreshments.

Participating restaurants include Dave and Andy’s, Hemingway’s, Mad Mex, Spice Cafe, Starbucks and more! There is also free parking at the UPMC lot on Meyran, free entry into the Carnegie Museum and free carousel rides in Schenley Plaza. You can also receive $5 off any performance of Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre’s production of an Ideal Husband or Wilde Tales.

The event takes place from 12-3pm Saturday and tickets can be purchased that day at Eureka Bank at 3455 Forbes and the Public Parklet at the corner of Forbes and S. Bouquet.

For more information, visit Only in Oakland’s website here.

Also on Saturday is the Good vs. Evil photography show at the Creative Treehouse.

The photography show will feature the work of local photographers each depicting one end of the broad spectrum of good and evil representations. There will photos for sale, as well as food and entertainment all for $5. The show is 18+ due to subject matter and will be hosted at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue.

For more information on the photography show, please visit the Treehouse’s website here.

And if you can still find the time, don’t forget to check out the Silk Screen Film Festival. Details can be viewed in my previous post here.

Pittsburgh, Oakland, Carnegie Museum, Bellevue, Creative Treehouse, photography, music

The Silk Screen Film Festival is back in Pittsburgh from May 9th through the 18th. The festival showcases the cinematic achievements of filmmakers from all over the world, exploring the depths of the Asian-American experience.

The films will be shown at the Harris Theater, Melwood Screening Room, Regent Square Theater and at the Warhol. A complete film schedule can be found here, but I’d like to highlight a couple I think would be interesting.

Getting Home: Based on a true story. In Zhang Yang’s quasi-philosophical road comedy, working-class stiff Zhao (the famous Chinese comedian Zhao Benshan) is shocked when his drinking buddy and co-worker drops dead during a routine night out. Zhoa owes it to his long-time friend to transport his corpse to its final resting place. Director Zhang Yang also made the critically acclaimed Shower.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon: In her first feature film, director Joy Deitrich paints a nuanced portrait of a female Korean adoptee who must confront her damaged past. Estranged from her family due to a childhood indiscretion with her white brother, Jenny Mason seeks to regain a sense of home by exploring ties with the Asian Americans she meets in her new apartment building, until suddenly, her brother shows up at the door, stirring up long lost feelings that she has tried to bury.

Ploy: Director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s psychological drama wherein three strangers are locked inside one hotel room. It starts with subtle suspicions and builds up to jealousy, as the appearance of a young woman triggers devastating consequences for a married couple.

In addition to providing thoughtful and memorable films to the Pittsburgh region, Silk Screen also has these goals in mind:

* Educate communities – Asian American and mainstream, local and national - about Asian and Asian American history, culture, experiences and issues;
* Bring Asian cultural education experiences to area schools and universities;
* Support ongoing development of Asian and Asian American independent cinema;
* Foster understanding across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, age, and region by bringing together the various Asian communities and the population at large within the Pittsburgh region;
* Sustain growth and encourage excellence in Asian American culture and Pittsburgh’s place within it. As the Festival grows, to become a full celebration of Asian heritage, build a more dynamic and multicultural community, and make Silk Screen a traveling event across the Commonwealth.

Neat!

For more information on showtimes, ticket prices, etc visit Silk Screen’s website here.

Don’t forget to visit Zombo Gallery this weekend to check out Ian Green’s exhibition!

Pittsburgh, Silk Screen, Asian American, film, festival

The latest Zombo Gallery show opened this past Friday, so I’m sorry I didn’t mention it earlier. It involves the artistic talent of Ian Green, a Pittsburgh native.

Who is Ian Green and why you have to see his art.

Ian Green was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. As a kid, he played mostly in the woods that edged Carrick. This was the 70’s and no one talked about green space, so the woods back when were basically considered a dumping ground for many and most roads that ended there were punctuated by many a lazy slob’s garbage. For a parent, this was surely a safety concern, but for little Ian, it was awesome! A seemingly endless supply of discarded and fading plastics, gems of broken glass, rusted metal and peeling painted wood mixed with lush vegetation and weeds offered forms and colors and textures that no clean playground could. Ian was into it.

Every so often, his family would go up to Mars, PA. to visit John and Louise Fox. John was a painter and antique dealer. Their warehouse was dark and ominous and filled to the rafters with John’s work and antique items ranging from nearly worthless to rare and exquisite – all
accompanied with a layer of dust the thickness of which bespoke either their newness or neglect. Wandering through this strange interior garden excited Ian the same way the junk did back home in the woods. He was hooked.

Skip ahead past the BFA from CCAD, the MFA in Painting from IU in Bloomington, and hit play in Pittsburgh 2000. Ian gets a studio in Homestead (where he is still working) but the world is very different now. He looks at people talking into their cell phones and they seem like plain-clothes extras rehearsing for a Star Trek episode, so he paints a broken branch in a dirty window with the light filtering through the dying leaves. Skip a little pass 911 to the ever-present terror we’re supposed to be feeling thanks to Fox News. No thanks – so Ian joins the Zany Umbrella Circus as an antidote to helplessness.

Now people talk to their invisible friends via little Borg attachments. Loud one-sided arguments from pissed off strangers drift up from the bus stop below his studio. Ian sees the billboards getting bigger and brighter and the people getting smaller and smaller and he’s seeing a lot more security cameras everywhere and yet people seem more afraid than ever. Pieces like “MacSanto’s Pizzarena”, and “Dave –n – Strikebusters” and “BINKY FON” stem from a growing suspicion—that our present humanity is sliding uneasily into a trap set for the future. This is what Ian calls “The Time of PIL”. Where good credit equals no worries and the billboards read you.

Closing Reception Friday May 23rd at 6pm
Gallery Hours.. Fridays from 5:00-7:30 and Saturdays Noon - 4pm
other times ..call 412-904-3703 appointments.

Zombo Gallery is located at 4900 Hatfield Street in Lawrenceville. Besides being an art gallery, Zombo sells custom t-shirts, dvds and cds, as well as recorded air checks of Zombo’s Record Show, heard on 88.3 FM. Definitely a neat place to check out!

If you can’t make it out to the gallery this weekend, you might want to practice your photography skills so you can submit work to the Good vs. Evil photography show that is going to be held May 17th at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue. For more information, visit my previous post on the event here.

Pittsburgh, Zombo Gallery, Ian Green, art, Lawrenceville

Earth Day is designated as a day and sometimes even an ongoing month, as a time when you think about your impact on the environment and what you can do to preserve the world for generations to come. If everyone did something more environmentally conscious just one day a year, there is the hope that people will continue their good deeds throughout the rest of the year and if not, at least they contributed on that one day.

There are many events going on around the city of Pittsburgh to celebrate this environmentally-friendly day, but I’m not going to list them, since they can be easily researched. Instead, I’d like to remind people what they can do to celebrate this day and to make a lasting impact on their lives.

First off, I think that most people choose not to be consciously aware of what they’re doing to the environment, because it’s inconvenient to think of or they just have too many other things on their mind. So instead of listing big changes, I’d like to suggest a couple of little things you can do that can really make a big impact on the environment. And really, if you care at all about your living conditions, at one point in your life you may consciously think about the world around you and the destruction that is occurring to it everyday that will negatively affect your life, if not today some day in the future.

I’m not even going to get into global warming, because really, people should care about taking care of their environment regardless of being threatened by hot weather and melting ice caps.

1. Stop buying water in plastic bottles and instead bottle water from your house to carry with you. Local water is under much higher scrutiny than bottled water, but just in case you’re leery of your tap water you can always install a filter of some sort.

2. Take the bus, car pool, walk or ride the bus to work, school, whatever if at all possible. The bus actually costs me the same amount of money, if not more than I’d spend on gas money for my car, yet money is not what concerns me; it’s all the pollution and traffic congestion that driving during rush hour produces. I’ve even started walking the two miles home from work, which is way healthier for me and the environment.

3. If you’re in the market for a new car and can afford a hybrid, I would highly suggest buying one. Sales on hybrids are up 40% just this year due to people getting fed up by high gas prices. Don’t become a victim of a struggling system and outrageous oil profits; think about alternatives to gas before you have no other choice but to use a huge chunk of your paycheck just to commute to work in your car.

4. Appreciate and enjoy nature like you did when you were a kid. Grow a plant, take a hike in the woods, walk along the river…do anything to immerse yourself in your real environment, not just the walls you build up around it in the shape of buildings and highways.

5. And lastly, use the backs of discarded paper. I have found this is the easiest way to save money on writing and printing paper, as well as helping to lessen the huge amount of paper that goes to waste. Encourage paper recycling at work as well!

You don’t have to listen to these tips and you can live in ignorance if you so choose, but today is about being aware of environmental issues, not ignoring them, so in all earnestness, please have a nice, environmentally conscious day!

Check out my previous post on Rachel Carson to read more about this local environmentalist, who is always recognized for her achievements around this time of year.

Pittsburgh, Earth Day

COMPANY MAN: TAKASHI MURAKAMI AND THE ART OF ‘BUSINESS ART’

Wednesday, April 23 at 6-7:30pm in Kresge Hall (CFA), Carnegie Mellon University.

THE ART OF BUSINESS/BUSINESS AS ART:
A DISCUSSION ON BUSINESS AND ART WITH SCOTT ROTHKOPF, SENIOR EDITOR OF ARTFORUM

Delegation, agency, team production, monitoring, group entrepreneurship‹all these terms inform the division of labor in contemporary artistic production. The business of art is conducted much like any other commercial venture in which something is bought, sold, or traded, and yet a work of art is not a commodity in the ordinary sense. Its value can fluctuate radically in an instant, depending on the influence of collectors, dealers, curators, critics, or connoisseurs. What kinds of negotiations must an artist make in order to retain a critical and creative edge within a competitive art market? How have contemporary artists used “the market” as both a medium of art, as well as a place of profit and gain? Is there a difference between consumerist luxury items and the “products” that artists like Murakami (in particular, his Louis Vuitton purse replicas) and Maywa Denki (their Japanese high-end robotic toys) produce? What is the line between entrepreneurial innovation and artistic invention?

“Business art is the step that comes after Art,” Andy Warhol famously opined in 1975. Yet despite the recent explosion of the international art market and the crossover superstardom of figures such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, perhaps only one artist has truly taken Warhol at his word: Takashi Murakami. This lecture will explore Murakami’s far-flung “business art” endeavors and their relationship to his painting and sculpture, within the context of precedents including Dalí, Warhol, and Haring. A household name in his native Japan, Murakami (b. 1963) first gained international celebrity in 2002 with his series of Louis Vuitton handbags, which grossed more than three-hundred million dollars in their first year of sales alone.

Although this corporate collaboration may be his most well-known foray into the world of commerce, it is but one point in a constellation of activities that dwarfs his gallery-bound paintings and sculpture in administrative scope and market reach. In addition to churning out finely crafted artworks coveted by collectors, he is busy producing related mass-market merchandise; running his own art fair; managing the careers of young Japanese artists; planning group exhibitions; hosting a radio show; and pursuing commercial “collaborations” in the form of advertising and branding projects with the likes of rapper Kanye West all under the auspices of his own multinational corporation, Kaikai Kiki, Co., Ltd., a “business art” venture unlike any before it. Indeed, if Warhol provided the model, Murakami has broken the mold.

Scott Rothkopf is a senior editor of Artforum, as well as an art historian and critic. He has been a guest curator at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, where he most recently co-organized “This Is Not a Time for Dreaming” (2004), a site-specific installation and film by the French artist Pierre Huyghe made in response to Le Corbusier’s only North American building, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. At the Fogg, he was also curator and catalogue author for the exhibition “Mel Bochner Photographs 1966¬1969″ (2002), which traveled to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. As a frequent contributor to Artforum, Rothkopf has written on major exhibitions, including the Venice and Whitney biennials, and on artists such as Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Sol LeWitt, Diller+Scofidio, Carroll Dunham, Josiah McElheny, T. J. Willcox, and Karen Kilimnik, who was the subject of his 2007 book, Period Eye: Karen Kilimnik’s Fancy Pictures, co-authored with Meredith Martin. His other museum and gallery catalogue contributions include monographic essays on Wade Guyton, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Kelley Walker, and Terry Winters, as well as text on Takashi Murakami for his current traveling retrospective, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Sponsored by the Office of the Provost, The School of Art, and the New Minor in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development.

For more information, contact Melissa Ragona, Assistant Professor of Art, School of Art, Carnegie Mellon University at mragona@andrew.cmu.edu.
Tel: (412) 779-9257

To read about other art events sponsored by Carnegie Mellon, check out my previous post here.

Pittsburgh, Takashi Murakami, Carnegie Mellon University, art, designer purses, commercial art