Monday, June 30, 2014

PICTURE THIS: Upper East Side Summer Art Festival at Waterfall Mansion by Kateshin Gallery

by OSCAR LALUYAN on 06/18/2014

THE TWO PIECES "ILLUSION' AND "THE ORANGE BIRDS ARE WORKING" BY VIRGINIE SOMMET

ARE PART OF THIS EXHIBITION DURING THE WHOLE SUMMER

There is even art on the ceiling

Summer Art Festiveal 2014

The scene at the Waterfall Mansion for Summer Art Festival 2014

Garon and Virgine Sommet at the Waterfall Mansion for Summer Art Festival 2014

Superstar Designer Karim Rashid (Center) photo from Alessandro Berni

Kate Shin (Left) and superstar Designer Karim Rashid (Center) with a guest

AF coined “the gritty bosom” for the Lower East Side and now we ended up last June 12^th at “the exquisitely exfoliated cleavage” of the Upper East Side for Summer Art Festival 2014 held at the $65 million Waterfall Gallery and Mansion. All floors were filled with established and emerging artists that showed technical prowess in line with artistic might. It was a night of champagne and elegance as the stellar power of art made the mansion shine like a diamond. Every floor was a majestic installation of great art staged in a luxurious interior and the very epitome of the art zenith called the Blue Chip bracket. This is the more refined and adult version of the New York Art Scene where the supernovas of the art world congregate to celebrate the best of the best. It will always be the allure of this said world that keeps people dreaming of million dollar gavel auction prices and the prestige of belonging to a secret impenetrable circle. But those of us who gained enough credit by being in the actual trenches and have paid our dues as pilgrims in the Valhalla of art, well it is a privilege to brush our shoulders with the haves because close proximity to fortune feeds the fantasy in hopes of becoming a reality.

Summer Art Festival (SAF) 2014 / June 12 – August 1, 2014

KATESHIN gallery at the Waterfall Mansion. 170 East 80^th Street. New York City, NY

(212) 988-0472. Gallery Admission is by appointment only

Text by: Oscar A. Laluyan

Photography by: Olya Turcihin

Serious wheeling and dealing at the Summer Art Festival 2014

Co-Curator Alessandro Berni at the Summer Arts Festival 2014

Another superstar designer Antonio Pio Saracino (right)

The scene at the Waterfall Mansion for Summer Art Festival 2014

The stairwell at the Waterfall Mansion during Summer Art Festival 2014

Celia and Helene Faussart (Les Nubiens)

Spiderman gets into the art event

Wearable Art abounds at the Upper East Side show

The Upper East Side art scene for Summer Art Festival 2014

Arte Fuse - Call For Bushwick "The Extensions of the Human Being"

The Extensions of the Human Being

by ALEJANDRO PARDO on 06/06/2014

Vida Sabbaghi guest Curator Queens Museum

Jeremiah Johnson

The international art contest Call for Bushwick 2014 has closed its doors this past Sunday after a thrilling three days exhibition. In its second edition the five jurors of Call for Bushwick (Michela Bondardo, Holly Crawford, Jill Conner, Alison Pierz, andVida Sabbaghi) selected 25 artists from a pool of more than 500 applicants. The winners represented the four corners of the world while most of them are proudly established in Brooklyn. The artists developed an idea offered by writer and art curator Alessandro Berni, namely, “Understanding Media: The Extensions of the Human Being”. The interpretations couldn’t be more diverse. Celebrated photographer Len Bernstein contributed with a vintage silver gelatin print taken in 1983 during the “March on Washington for Jobs, Peace, & Freedom”. The piece features two ascending columns of people merging from crisp black into sheer white and vice versa in a remarkably peaceful flux. Mr. Bernstein, which works are in the public collections of The Library of Congress and the Museum of the City of New York between many others, made time to attend at the opening and explain his views on Aesthetic Realism.

Call for Bushwick 2014

Sui Park’s work

Award-winner filmmaker Juan Carlos Zaldivar however, explored the human search for identity throughout his short film “Shift” which was screened at Cannes Film Festival 2013 under the Cannes Court Metrage Section. Made out of an ensemble of over 10,000 photographs taken over a year and a half, the film reflects upon physical, psychological, and cultural transformations using a vividly saturated pallet and an enchanting sound of remarkable precision.

Sui Park, a Korean rising star with exhibitions in Seoul (Korea) and Chelsea (New York City), answered roundly with “Cell”, literally a physical extension. The artist invited the public to wear his installation and feel the embracing sensation of being extended beyond the conventional boundaries of their bodies.

During the show the public had the opportunity to talk directly with creators such as Alette Simmons-Jimenez, Virginie Sommet, or Timur York in the presence of their own artworks, and even get to discuss them with jurors of the contest such as Michela Bondardo, top cultural strategic planner, who spent Sunday’s exhibition closing sharing her wise counsel with artists and collectors.

Article by Alejandro Pardo