New York Art News

THIS WEEKEND - New Museum BLOCK Party

Free

Sara D. Roosevelt Park
Chrystie Street between Delancey and Broome Streets
New York City

Join us for the New Museum Block Party 2008, a day of art activities and performances on Saturday, July 19, 2008, from 12 to 7 p.m. in Sara D. Roosevelt Park! Enjoy a range of artist- and educator-led interactive projects and programs related to the neighborhood and the New Museum as well as a tour of the exhibition “2008 Altoids Award” at the New Museum. Block Party is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

Highlights include:

- The New Museum and community organizations lead hands-on workshops exploring local art, architecture, and culture, from 12 noon – 6:00 p.m.

- The Bowery Poetry Club Poets perform with Youth Poets and the MayHem Poets, a group writing poetry to the beat of hip- hop at 3:30 and 5:30 p.m.

- Festivities come to life through a series of live performances by Bindlestiff Family Cirkus and Vangeline Theater at 2:00, 2:45 , 4:30, and 6:15 p.m.

Block Party is organized by the New Museum. Participating community organizations include the Bowery Poetry Club, openhousenewyork, Tenement Museum, Chinatown YMCA Houston Street Center, Educational Alliance, Rivington House, and University Settlement.

For more information, please call 212-219-1222.

Elena Monzo

Posted in New York Art, New York Art News, New York Art Scene, art with tags Elena Monzo, New York Art, New York Art News, Sara Tecchia Roma, Top New York Artists on July 17, 2008 by alexushilton

Drawing is a tool for the free production of images; it can be an automatic practice. It’s a primary activity, like eating or sleeping. With a pen I can go anywhere. Everything starts with a pen and a piece of paper, and then spreads to fill up spaces. Following the outline of a figure with your eyes is like touching a whole body with your hands. It’s a linear vision that marks the border between every form, and isolates everything. It’s the art of “being,” not “appearing.”

I look for a synthesis of elegance and formal composition to seize the theatrical aspects of daily life. The constant lack of silence or pause pushes me to look for existing images and filter them through a process of subtraction. The result is the representation of what is necessary through simplification. My images are contemporary because people are the main characters.

I look for strong images. My focus is on the relationship between two beings, two forms often joined—or sewn—together. Legs usually are missing from my figures because, to me, they don’t have much importance. My priority is to complete the figure quickly in the most synthetic way. The result is ironic, sharp, and unholy—a reflection of contemporary reality where everything is cyclical. I enjoy re-adapting subjects from art history. My works can be interpreted freely—I give only a hint of identification. They are personal dialogues, arguments resolved quickly, made by the most basic tools. The colors, the glitter, and the stickers are our fetishes, instruments that help us look a certain way.

The surface of a piece of paper—a completely empty, white space—hosts irreverent characters that partially emerge, transmitting sharp emotions. The lack of a background generates an emptiness in which the subject moves anonymously. The sheet of paper becomes a container of an untold story, preventing the character from communicating with the outside.

In my works there are no messages, only explosions, chaos, pieces of life casually put together—moments, gestures, meetings. These instantaneous drawings, like Polaroids, SMS messages, or comic strips, lack narratives and are documents of poetry and life.