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PAST EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS

 

January 29th, 2010 - "The Caged Bird Sings" - Alfa Art Gallery's Second Year Anniversary

The Caged Bird Sings

Six Musicians. Twenty-Four Hours. ONE VIBRATION

Exhibition Duration: January 29 - February 17, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, January 29, 6:30pm - January 30, 7:30pm
Tickets: $5 at the door (1/2 of the proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders, a Haiti relief fund)
Curators: Michiko Mull and Natalie Trainor

BROADCAST: We will attempt to broadcast the event live on-line. Click here to watch a live video stream of the performance!"

 

Since January of 2008, Alfa Art Gallery has proudly served the community with a multidisciplinary approach to visual art, in which the traditional boundaries of art installation and exhibition are broken through the incorporation of video, poetry, dance and musical performance. As we excitedly approach our second year, the gallery hopes to continue in challenging the status quo by bridging the gap between various artistic forms.

About the Opening:

On Friday, January 29th, 2010, Alfa Art Gallery will celebrate its 2nd Year Anniversary with “The Caged Bird Sings”, a 24-hour musical extravaganza featuring six musicians whose performances will run continuously from Friday at 7:30pm to Saturday, January 30th at 7:30 pm. Visual artists, choreographed dancers and performance artists will present collaborative works in conjunction with this performance.

“The Caged Bird Sings” was first conceived by Michael Durek, a local experimental musician, who was inspired by Albert Einstein’s claim that “everything in life is a vibration”. In his remarkable lifetime, Einstein was referring to the fact that everything in the universe emits a unique frequency.  These frequencies, or vibrations, do not exist in isolation.  Rather, each vibration affects and is affected by every other vibration, even across great distances. “The Caged Bird Sings” will emulate this concept through a 24 hour musical improvisation of six musicians placed within individual cells (Cage design by Jim Tuite, Michael Durek, and Anne Percoco; Cage construction led by Mercedes Bradley). As the musicians respond to each other’s vibrations, so too will the visual artists, performance artists and dancers present work in reflection of each other.

About the Exhibition:

In her “Slips” series, Michelle Provenzano explores the fleeting and unguarded moments of gestural expression through watercolor, drawing, and sculpture. Her work often memorializes casted shadows, in which the physical manifestation of memory is both interactive and thought-provoking. Similarly, artist Sarah Granett constructs a nebulous spandex form in which a series of time based interactions offer the contemplation of surface, form and infinity.

In his series entitled, 'It Came From Beneath the Sea’, artist Eric Clausen considers the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, an alternative evolutionary theory which proposes that our ancestors first adapted to life within a partially aquatic atmosphere. These works illustrate our “natural environment” (the sea), the human ascent to land, and perhaps why humans have never returned.

Artist Ian Trask’s primary medium is trash. After noticing the abundance of industrial waste from his work place, Trask set out to liberate and transform his found medium into mesmerizing pieces of sculpture. His installation on view entitled “Variable” is made out of found and recycled cardboard.

Anne Percoco’s "Complements of the Hotel Eden" is an interactive sculpture that was inspired by Alduous Huxley’s “Island”, Jospeh Cornell’s bird-themed vitrines, and the artist’s personal matchbox collection. In addition, the artist will create a delayed video feed of a space projected onto itself, allowing performers and viewers to interact with their past traces and movements.

Daniel Pillis is a verbal and visual artist, whose artistic motivations are fueled by a deeply seated desire to decompress the inner workings of social systems by re-interpreting symbolic devices through the mechanisms of subjective identity. His current work on view exemplifies the relationships between the constraints of time and the creative process. 

Other Information:

Contributing musicians for our opening event include Robert L. Pepper and Amber Brien of Brooklyn-based experimental music group PAS, Dave Tamura of The Jazz Fakers, Tsubasa Berg, long-time experimental musician Damien Olsen, and Michael Durek himself. Participating choreographers and dancers include Laura McComb and Jilliana Richcrick of And Dancers,  Nicole Mahncke and Michelle Puskas of The Nikki Manx Dance Project, Carla Menchinella, Emily Pope-Blackman of HoverBound, and Ann Peters. 

Cage design for this event: Jim Tuite and Mercedes Bradley.

event photos


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