Installation #2 of Artist-in-Residence, Camilo Godoy

Photos from Opening Night of Unos Heroes.

Join Lenapeeps as we install show #2 of our artist-in-residence, Camilo Godoy. Unos Heroes is part 2  in a 3-part series of  shows paying homage to America’s undocumented immigrants. His work draws upon the immigrant identity. His photographs and videos are narratives extracted from the American dream: a collective journey based on the extreme faith in courage and manifest destiny. (Source: press release)

The show opens on December 4th, 2009, Friday from 6-9pm.

The after-party is at The Warehouse: 140 Bay St.

Join us for the gallery’s 4th show: CLANDESTINO

The above was one of the installations from the 9/11 opening of Artist-in-Residence, Camilo Godoy’s CLANDESTINO. His photographs and video work compel us to ask the fiction of legal status in the U.S.

The after-party is at The Warehouse, the cafe and bistro that Julius and I will open that same night at the powerhouse Arts District of Jersey City (140 Bay St.)

At The Warehouse, there will be an environmental design show called Bird-Fish by Egor Panchenk0, with illustration by Matthew Caputo. Join us for this exciting 9/11 event.

A photo of the show’s test run last night is below…

MUAC:: museu universitaria de arte contemporaneo::

machine as a design to direct force, including desire and when we desire against this force, we are at the heart of resistance. to the insignificance of being… ( a mezcla of works by Cildo Meireles + Simin Penny)

Julius’ ::evo lution:: set at the outdoor area of muac.

roma-condessa art scene (mexico city):::

shots de DF (Julius)

jersey city’s powerhouse in the (re)making…

All props to John Gomez (2nd from left) of the JC Landmarks Conservancy for his organization’s tireless effort to preserve the Powerhouse. This historic landmark will be kilometer zero for the City’s Arts District. So artepara and PAD residents applaud and fully support the City’s promise to REVIVE the Powerhouse! GO CITY POWER! We will continue to closely surveillance any progress in an effort to hold the City accountable to its promise to our community.

Gallery featured by NEW magazine

For more, pick up your free copies at select and indie JC businesses. Also see: http://www.wearenew.com/

Arnaud Zein El Din

One of our third show’s featured artist, Arnaud Zein El Din, happens to also be an architect. Below is one of his proposed architectural designs. The other photo is of one of his works entitled “Mirror Evidence”. It was this work captivated me first and led me to Arnaud and co-artist,  Delphine’s, smaller pieces. “Mirror Evidence: was was on display at the ILM Gallery in Distrito Federal (Mexico City).

While Lenapeeps art gallery was not able to acquire this particular piece, smaller lightboxes by Arnaud were.

Visit lenapeeps art gallery 8 for the ongoing exhibit of his work.  (Only thru July 4th)

[Art] is breaking free…”Younger than Jesus”

“[Art] is breaking free.” concludes Jerry Saltz, in his New York Magazine review of the Bowery’s New Museum triennial, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus”. (April 20, 2009; p. 67-69.)

Saltz wrote that the triennial “indicates that the alchemical essence known as the sublime, the primal buzz of it all, is no longer in God or nature or abstraction…that the sublime has moved into us, that we are the sublime; life, not art, has become so real that it’s almost unreal.” [Emphasis Added.]

This is exactly why the work of Francis X. Pasion, in “Jay”, hit me. In “Jay” life comes at you so real that it indeed becomes unreal.  Herein lies the emotional power and merit of “Jay” for it turns our reality upside down. “Jay” asks us the questions about the spectacle of loss through death and of ourselves (which is what sublime art is ultimately about). Nothing about the film placates.

Of no coincidence, the triennial’s artists were all born after 1976 (and are therefore under 33, the age of Jesus’ death). Francis X. Pasion was born in 1978. (Unfortunately for me, I don’t make the cutoff as I was born in 1976! Acceptance is bliss too!)

In one of our talks, Francis had posed the question to me whether everything in life is pre-determined despite the independent choices we have the privilege to make (since in most instances, no choice really exists). Yet again and again, the end result of the life experiences that we examined affirmed that all of life is predetermined. For real!

Now, it is not a coincidence that as Francis  comes to New York City for the first time to screen “Jay”, the under 33 artists exhibit of the New Museum opens. In fact, we made it to the New Museum but did not have enough time to view the exhibit! Then again, there was no need as we were in the company of one of them already—all “Younger than Jesus”, these rare cadre  of artists, core of the sublime.

Francis X. Pasion, director of multi-awarded indie film “Jay”,

showed a trailer of his movie and talked about the creative process with gallery patrons. Lenapeeps art gallery 8 is a sponsor of his film screening.

Those patrons who were there on Saturday will get free tickets to the screening of “Jay” on Saturday, 6/13 is at 10 pm; for sunday at 5:45pm…both at the School of Visual Arts in 333 West 23rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, New York City. For more info, see http://indiobravo.org/festival]