Phil Whitman, Battlefield Guides in Devil's Den, Gettysburg. 2008, graphite on paper, 12 x 13 inches. Courtesy the artist and iGavel.

Just received word from Alana Celii that iGavel Associates and Daniel Cooney Fine Art are calling for open submissions to their successful series of Emerging Artist Auctions, and are encouraging artists of all mediums (except installation) who do not have gallery or commercial representation to forward work for consideration by December 14th. The first Emerging Artist Auction curated from these submissions is slated to launch in early 2010.

iGavel is an international network of fine art and antiques professionals with regional networks that enable consignors to minimize handling and shipping expenses while reaching an international marketplace of buyers.

In participation with Daniel Cooney Fine Art and iGavel Associates, iGavel is pleased to present our Emerging Artists Auctions. These auctions include a curated selection of works of art by promising emerging talent. The auction is a showcase before an audience of collectors, dealers, museum professionals and gallery owners. To ensure equal and fair representation all works are presented with reserves set at $200.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis. To submit you must meet the following requirements:

- Undergraduate student works will not be accepted
- All mediums are welcome besides installation works
- Artists cannot have gallery or commercial representation
- Some prior exhibition or publication experience is required

To submit, please go to iGavel’s submissions page to fill out an online form and upload images, or email submissions to EmergingArtists@iGavel.com.

Submit one image per work. Images must be at least 800 pixels on the longest side, jpeg saved for web, below 200kb in size, and SRGB color space. Each artist will be required to sign a contract with iGavel. Artists receive a 50% commission on all sold works. Shipping of accepted works to iGavel or the iGavel Associate is the responsibility of the artist, and the return shipment if not sold. After your submission is received, you will be contacted by email.

Tags: Alana Celii, auction, call for submissions, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, emerging artists, iGavel, open call.

Kate Bush Dance Troupe, 2008. Courtesy Jennifer Sullivan

Because who doesn’t want to watch a heartfelt, quirky tribute to one of music’s most beloved, haunting eccentrics?

The Kate Bush Dance Troupe (Samara Davis, Erica Magrey, Cassie Thornton, Kate Scherer, Renata Espinosa and Jennifer Sullivan) will be performing as the closing act of choreographer Chase Granoff’s piece in Nancy Garcia/Chase Granoff at The Kitchen, November 5, 6, and 7. In addition, Garcia and Granoff will each be premiering new works inspired by sources ranging from noise and punk music to the writings of Doris Humphrey and Simone Forti.

The Kate Bush Dance Troupe is an ongoing collaborative ensemble of non-dancers who create dance performances inspired by the music and emotive movement stylings of Kate Bush.

Buy Tickets

The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street
Thursday–Saturday, November 5-7, 8pm
$12
Curated by Matthew Lyons

Tags: Cassie Thornton, Chase Granoff, choreographers, dance, Erica Magrey, Kate Bush Dance Troupe, Kate Scherer, Nancy Garcia, Renata Espinosa and Jennifer Sullivan, Samara Davis, The Kitchen.

Michael McConnell, Slings 1, courtesy of the artist.

Tonight: Group opening at Jancar Jones Gallery in SF- Justin Beal, Lena Daly & Kate Owens. 6-9pm.

Artist Mark Dion presents a lecture about his work around scientific presentation and methodologies. Timken Hall at CCA, SF campus. 7-9pm. Free.

Friday, October 16th: Michael McConnell’s Slings and Arrows opens at Gallery BellJar in SF. 6-9pm. 

HYPERSPACES group opening at Park Life in SF: new works by Sean Mcfarland, Paul Wackers, David Kasprzak, Orion Shepherd, and James Sterling Pitt. 7-10pm

Cutters, an exhibition of international collage curated by James Gallagher, opens at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn. 7-10pm

Saturday October 17th: The newly renovated El Museo del Barrio celebrates its grand reopening with free admission and a day of music and activities. 11am-9pm.

The grand opening of SF’s contemporary art space Southern Exposure in its new location, with an inaugural exhibition, Bellwether. 4-10pm

Sunday, October 18th: artist Tamar Hirschl will hold an open studio event as part of Chelsea’s High Line Open Studios event, featuring tours of more than 100 artists’ workspaces in the center of New York’s gallery district.

Monday, October 19th: The Berkeley Center for New Media and SFMOMA  presents From A to B and Back Again, a photo and video presentation by artist Candice Breitz. 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley, 7:30-9pm. Free.

Wednesday, October 21st: International curators Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Jens Hoffmann, Hou Hanru, and Dominic Willsdon participate in a panel discussion at the SF Art Institute on Global Art in the Downturn. 7:30pm. Free.

Tags: BellJar, Bellwether, Candice Breitz, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, CCA, Cinders, Cutters, David Kasprzak, Dominic Willsdon, El Museo del Barrio, From A to B and Back Again, Gallery, Global Art in the Downturn, grand opening, High Line, Hou Hanru, James Gallagher, James Sterling Pitt, Jancar Jones, Jens Hoffmann, Justin Beal, Kate Owens, lecture, Lena Daly, Mark Dion, Michael McConnell, open studios, Orion Shepherd, Park Life, Paul Wackers, Sean Mcfarland, SF MoMA, SFAI, Southern Exposure, Tamar Hirschl, UC Berkeley.

Mike Sinclair, Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri. 30x40 inches, Archival pigment print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Two more days to catch the 2009 First Edition of Hey, Hot Shot!, Jen Bekman Gallery’s twice-yearly showcase for emerging photographers. The exhibition opened September 9th and features the photography of Michelle Arcila, Daniel Cheek, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss and Kurt Tong.

With the exception of Steinweiss’ large-format details of stacks of printed material, reminiscent of some of Marco Breuer’s abstractions, the works on exhibit all seemed to touch upon each photographers’ unique relationship(s) with aspects of the natural landscape.

Here are some of our favorite images:

Kurt Tong, Guangzhou Zoo II, 2007. 32x40 inches, Lambda print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Michelle Arcila, Faering, 2007. 16x20 inches, C-Print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Daniel Cheek, Mercey Hot Springs, Mendota, California. 2009, 8x10 inches, Gelatin silver print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Sinclair, Tong and Arcila’s works are also available in multiple editions at 20×200.

Tags: 2009 First Edition, 20x200, Daniel Cheek, Hey Hot Shot, Jen Bekman Gallery, Kurt Tong, Michelle Arcila, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss, photographers.

TONIGHT, August 20th: Artists’ reception for Trains and Trips from Cement to Cemetery at Heist Gallery, featuring Peter Feigenbaum’s model-railroad-scale depiction of outer-borough NYC in the 1980s, and eerie woodland paintings by Marissa Bluestone.

Friday, August 21st: EAI Project Space at X-Initiative presents a video tribute to the late Merce Cunningham, featuring works by Charles Atlas, Nam June Paik and Shigeto Kubota. Noon-8pm, free.

San Francisco artists Lisa Rybovich Cralle and Jessalyn Aaland’s Good News opens at Painted Bird, with music by Jealousy. 8-10pm. Thru Sept. 11th.

Saturday, August 22nd: The 8th annual San Francisco Zine Fest celebrates small-press and DIY publications from the Bay Area and beyond this weekend. At the SF County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park thru Sunday, August 23rd, 11am-6pm, free.

Sunday, August 23rd:  One of our favorite storytellers, Juliet Wayne, is spinning a 40-minute tale, “The Moron Years,” about her life which is already the stuff of legend. If you haven’t seen her at various performance events around NYC or Philadelphia, don’t miss your chance this weekend. 6pm, Cornelia Street Cafe, $10. (via Jeff Simmermon)

Monday, August 24th: Your last week to catch I Don’t Believe in Miracles, a group exhibition focusing on the natural elements curated by Alana Celii at Space Womb gallery in Long Island City. Open Thursday-Monday.

Tags: Alana Celii, Cornelia Street Cafe, EAI, Good News, Heist Gallery, I Don't Believe In Miracles, Jeff Simmermon, Jessalyn Aaland, Juliet Wayne, Lisa Rybovich Cralle, Marissa Bluestone, Merce Cunningham, Painted Bird, paintings, Peter Feigenbaum, railroad model, SF Zine Fest, Space Womb, storyteller, storytelling, The Moron Years, Trains and Trips from Cement to Cemetery, video, X Initiative.

Slideluck Potshow's attendees mingle before the slideshow.

Slideluck Potshow is a non-profit organization formed around two great ideas: food and art. Last night in New York City’s spacious Canoe Studios in Chelsea, SLPS put on its thirteenth NYC show. The event started, as the name would suggest, with a potluck dinner. Guests were asked to bring a dish and/or drink to share. I arrived about an hour later than the 6:30pm starting time, but there was still enough food around, a grill for brats and dogs on the balcony and plenty of desserts. DJ Moni provided the mingling music, as guests stuffed their faces watching the sun set over Jersey.

A sampling of the fare at the potluck

Eating and mingling while the sun sets over the Hudson River

The dessert table (with icebox pie, cupcakes, lemon crumb cake...)

Slideluckers wait for the show to begin.

The main event of the evening started around 9:30. The slideshow was simulcast into at least three packed standing-room only gallery rooms. This slideshow was anything but your grandparents’ last summer vacation. Each of the featured artists’ works were multimedia spectacles accompanied by music and sometimes video. The theme of this year’s SLPS XIII was “Now.” The diverse group of artists rose to the challenge wonderfully, from Chief White House photographer and esteemed photojournalist Peter Souza’s photos of the first family’s first year (set to the audio of the President’s Inauguration Address), to San Francisco’s Lisa Wiseman and her The New Polaroid series, a collection of dreamy whimsical images all captured with an iPhone.

An image from Claudio Papapietro's Demolition Derby series. c. Claudio Papapietro

For me personally, many of the most surprising, poignant and beautiful images of the night came from several photographers examining American subcultures. Claudio Papapietro’s Demolition Derby series shows a group of friends as they make preparations for and compete in a demolition derby. Papapeitro’s use of light and composition endows his working-class subjects with subtle nobility. Like Papapietro, Brooklyn’s Kim Reierson focuses on an underside of American culture in her Exotic World Dancer portraits. The photos of the burlesque competition’s contestants range from ages 18-80 and allows her subjects’ beauty to manifest through their flaws, rather than in spite of them. The Chicago-based Brian Ulrich’s Dark Store, Ghost Boxes and Dead Malls is a haunting reminder and warning of America’s financial struggles as photograph after photograph depicts empty malls, weed-plagued barren parking lots, and lonely storefronts with only ghost-letter impressions of the corporate names they used to carry.

I (Lego) New York by Christoph Niemann. c. Christoph Niemann

A major part of what made the collection of slideshows work so well was the juxtaposition of the vastly different artists and mediums. Whimsical and playful pieces like Jonah Sampson’s Pleasantville, a series of toy-like model people engaged in many comically-placed scenes of violence and debauchery, or Christoph Niemann’s crowd-favorite Lego art in I (Lego) New York were placed directly next to heavy, thought-provoking, difficult images like Portrait of a Genocide’s stark and heart-wrenching reminders of the atrocities in Rwanda by French documentary photographer Myriam Abdelaziz.

The evening was a success and a tribute to the work that directors Casey Kelbaugh and Alys Kenny have put into these shows nationally and internationally. I strongly recommend making your best dish and attending the next Slideluck Potshow either in its next return to New York or in the myriad of other locations where they set up a projector.

The spacious Canoe Studios on W. 26th Street hosted Slideluck Potshow's thirteenth New York show.

All photos by Joyce Tota unless noted.

Tags: American subculture, Brian Ulrich, Canoe Studios, Christoph Niemann, Claudio Papapietro, iPhone art, Jonah Samson, Kim Reierson, Myriam Abdelaziz, New York, Obama, Pete Souza, Photography, potluck, Rwanda, Slideluck Potshow, slideshow, White House.

TONIGHT: San Francisco-based artist Chris Lux’s solo exhibition Give Me Some Peppermint Freedom opens at Jancar Jones Gallery. Lux’s work was accorded this week’s SFBG Pick for his “new rave sensibility.” 6-9pm, free. Through July 18th.

OMG Gallery Aferro Benefit preview, see below for additional details. 6-8pm

Saturday, June 20th: OMG Aferro Art Party Benefit. Gallery Aferro founders Evonne Davis and Emma Wilcox have been consistently supporting and producing some of the strongest emerging artists’ projects that The Totam has come across in recent years. Funds from the sale of artist-donated artworks and crafts at this inaugural benefit event will be used to cover the costs of finalizing Aferro’s status as a non-profit organization. We strongly urge tri-state residents to enjoy an entertaining evening and buy some fantastic work to support an organization promoting a thriving community of artists in and beyond the Newark area.

Everything is Terrible: The Movie premieres at The Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles. This full-length feature by the group of friends responsible for the popular Everything is Terrible website and YouTube channel promises to be a comic videoclip mashup of weird and epic proportions. One night only. Accompanied by a screening of the 1994 softcore classic, Dinosaur Island. 10:30pm, $10. Tickets here.

Monday, June 22nd: catch Afternoon, the solo project of singer-songwriter Krista Warden at the new Williamsburg music venue Bruar Falls, with Drew Victor. Warden’s accordion, guitar, and bittersweet honky-tonk-tinged vocal sensibility has graced collaborations with fellow Brooklyn notables Drew Victor, Beastheart and Sharon van Etten. 9pm, free.

Tuesday, June 23rd: The opening of X-Initiative’s No Soul For Sale: A Festival of Independents. X has invited more than 30 international nonprofit art spaces to travel to New York City to present themselves, their programs and the artists they support. 1-9pm, RSVP here. Through June 28th.

In conjunction with No Soul For Sale, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) will be unveiling a temporary video project space on X’s ground floor which will be open to the public, bringing new works by emerging artists into dialogue with rarely seen historical treasures from the EAI archives for the summer. Character Witness, the launch program for EAI’s project space, includes works by Kalup Linzy, Alex Bag, Michael Smith, MICA-TV, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, and Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. 6pm, free. Through September 2009.

Tags: Aferro, Afternoon, Beastheart, Bruar Falls, Chris Lux, clips, Dinosaur Island, Drew Victor, EAI, emerging artists, Emma Wilcox, Everything Is Terrible, Evonne Davis, Gallery, Give Me Some Peppermint Freedom, Jancar Jones, Krista Warden, movie, Newark, No Soul for Sale, non-profit, OMG, SFBG, Sharon Van Etten, Silent Theater, summer, temporary, video, Williamsburg, X Initiative.

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and I just found this very interesting post from artist Michael Mandiberg about his request to a number of reproduction painters in Shenzhen to copy Jeff Widener’s iconic photo of a man in front of PLA tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests.

Courtesy Michael Mandiberg

Mandiberg posted images of some of the finished paintings, all done in an almost uniform, bland illustration style, along with a quote from the negotiations for the making of the works. The suggestions about composition were funny, but it was most compelling to find that at least one painter outright refused to recreate the image:

Courtesy Michael Mandiberg

I remember going to rallies with my dad in support of the student demonstrations at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco’s Chinatown as a kid, and the ubiquity of the tank image in the newspapers and on TV at the time. To Chinese around the world, it seemed the tank photo and reproductions of the Goddess of Democracy were cherished symbols of a freedom worth defending. It was surprising to learn from Mandiberg’s post that this photo has been virtually eliminated from the Chinese media, but not surprising that the Chinese government continues to censor any hint of negativity in all incoming and outgoing communications. I wonder if this will ever improve.

Twenty years have passed since that violent government crack down on the twenty-something college students occupying the public square in pro-democracy protest. Enough time for the protestors’ children to grow up without ever seeing this famous image that was eradicated by the media. It lies cloaked lies cloaked in Google searches, behind the Great Firewall of China.

This famous image did not exist. This was one manifestation of China’s pattern of Internet censorship. Another pattern was that if a scandals breaks out in China, all webpages outside of China are temporarily disabled. During my month there, two regional politicians were caught in corruptions investigations. One of them was sentenced to death, and the other killed himself. The official reports glossed over the details, and focused on the new appointee. The New York Times, on the other hand, did an in-depth analysis, which I happened to read, as I was up at a strange jet-lagged hour. It was gone the next day.

Just yesterday the New York Times published a small series of editorials about the anniversary. And just now they are reporting on extensive shutdowns of most major communications platforms, from the NYTimes.com to Twitter. Ironically, that article will not make it through the firewall either.

Michael Mandiberg is an Eyebeam Senior Fellow and an Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island/CUNY. Drawing Contemporaries, an exhibit curated by Mandiberg and featuring some of his laser drawings, is on view at Eyebeam until June 9th.

Mandiberg.com

Tags: 1989, censorship, China, Eyebeam, internet, Jeff Widener, June 4th, media, Michael Mandiberg, painting village, paintings, photograph, reproductions, Shenzhen, student demonstrations, tanks, Tiananmen Square.

Daniel Salemi, Ikea vs. Beuer, 2009, c-print. Courtesy of Kris Graves Projects.

Not able to see Swoon’s Swimming Cities, or Bruce Nauman’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale in person this year? Well, you could opt to visit what is being touted as the Biennale’s “largest pavilion” here, or just take advantage of an abundance of homegrown activities this weekend and beyond:

TONIGHT: Honey Space hosts a benefit and celebration for Swoon’s Swimming Cities of Serenissima, with a silent auction that includes works by many of the artists on the boats’ crew, and a raffle for original artwork by Swoon and Thomas Beale. 7-9pm, $10 admission.

Artists Daniel Salemi and Austin Thomas have concurrent openings of their work tonight in the main and project spaces of Kris Graves Projects. Salemi’s photographs and Thomas’ drawings and collages share an affinity for architectural forms. 6-9pm

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF presents Big Idea Night, featuring the delicious stylings of Mission Street Food. 9pm-3am. FREE, RSVP recommended.

Friday June 5th: Varnish Gallery hosts a party to raise awareness about eminent domain issues with guests Jello Biafra, Matt Gonzalez, etc. The gallery is one of over 30 local businesses and residences being evicted by a San Francisco city agency under the property law. 7-Midnight, 21+. Free.

Saturday June 6th: As part of Michael Cataldi and Nils Norman’s The University of Trash at Sculpture Center in Long Island City, guest artists McKendree Key and the neuroTransmitter collective have been invited to give public courses at the museum. Key will teach a family workshop on making recycled paper and paper-pulp sculptures, and neuroTransmitter will lead a radio transmitter building workshop. 1pm. Courses available with $5 admission to museum. ($25 materials fee and a reservation for the transmitter class is recommended.)

Your last chance to see Sophie Calle (and 107 other women)’s collaborative breakdown of a breakup, Take Care of Yourself at Paula Cooper Gallery.

Saturday & Sunday, June 6th & 7th: Oakland’s Pro Arts Gallery presents the 2009 East Bay Open Studios. Over 400 artists exhibit their work this weekend and the weekend of June 14th-15th. Visit site for more info.

Sunday June 7: The Exploratorium hosts a talk, reception and book signing by scholar Edward Shanken, author of the new book Art and Electronic Media, interviewed by arts commentator Dorka Keehn. Innovative Bay Area electronics artists Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paul DeMarinis, Ken Goldberg, Jim Campbell, Survival Research Labs, and Alan Rath are among the over 200 artists featured in Shanken’s book. 3pm. Free with Exploratorium admission.

Monday June 8th: David Byrne will perform a selection of music created with Brian Eno at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of BRIC Art’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. Other performers this summer include Femi Kuti, Blonde Redhead, Big Daddy Kane and They Might Be Giants. 8pm, gates open at 6:30pm. FREE, first come first served.

Tags: Alan Rath, artists, auction, Austin Thomas, benefit, Big Idea Night, Brian Eno, BRIC Arts, Bruce Nauman, Celebrate Brooklyn!, Daniel Salemi, David Byrne, Dorka Keehn, East Bay Open Studios, Edward Shanken, eminent domain, Exploratorium, festival, Honey Space, Internet Pavilion, Jello Biafra, Jim Campbell, Ken Goldberg, Kris Graves Projects, Matt Gonzalez, McKendree Key, Michael Cataldi, Miltos Manetas, Mission Street Food, Nils Norman, Oakland, paper, Paul DeMarinis, Paula Cooper Gallery, Prospect Park Bandshell, radio transmitter, Rafael Rozendaal, recycled, Sculpture Center, Sophie Calle, Survival Research Labs, Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Swoon, Take Care of Yourself, University of Trash, Varnish Gallery, Venice Biennale, workshop, Yerba Buena Center,  Art and Electronic Media,  Lynn Hershman Leeson,  neuroTransmitter.

Brian Ulrich, Circuit, Ponderosa. Image via www.notifbutwhen.com

Interesting work by artists working with photography and video opening in NYC this weekend:

TONIGHT: Brian Ulrich at Julie Saul Gallery, 6-8pm. Ulrich photographs consumer culture, from the boom of post-9/11 spending to the shuttered storefronts and interiors of recent years.

Friday, May 29th: William Lamson at Pierogi 2000, 7-9pm. Lamson documents three interventions within urban, natural and gallery contexts, including the exchange of his shoes for ones shot down from Brooklyn power lines with a bow and arrow. 

Saturday, May 30th: Leo Fitzpatrick at Fuse Gallery, 7-10pm. The snapshot quality of Fitzpatrick’s photos of “the deterioration of America at the turn of the century,” taken on a series of cross-country road trips, are an interesting complement to Ulrich’s deliberately observed images of suburban decline.

ALSO: William Kentridge closes at the SFMOMA this Sunday May 31st; last chance to catch Kentridge’s masterful films, drawings and mechanical theater works.

Tags: Brian Ulrich, Fuse, Gallery, Julie Saul, Leo Fitzpatrick, Pierogi 2000, SF MoMA, William Kentridge, William Lamson.