Common Threads
Until July 31st
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
212-247-0082
This is a show with works by female artists. All of the works speak through fabric worked and molded in various constructions. The show features artists such as: Faith Ringgold, Lee Bontecou, Bety Saar. I loved them all, the sculpture by Yayoi Kusama(image above) is something to see, it's a sculpture make of painted gold (think the color of 18kt gold) it's an elaborate intertwining of tubular constructions, maybe phallic. Barbara Chase-Riboud's piece of silk and bronze creates tension between the strength of metal with the fluidity of silk. I had a chat with Michael; he said what makes this show unique is the fact that few male artists have done work using fabric as extensively as women artists have. I believe this is a female thing. Is this related to the role women played in society years ago? We sewed by hand, we mended, darned and quilted; even the wealthiest women spent many a leisure afternoon in the drawing room engaged in needlepoint.
We've come a long way baby.
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Hey Guys
We just finished the workshop here at Cannes, and to say it was a success would be an understatement. Let me try and sum it up in a nice short email.
We had close to 200 people crammed into the room. There wasn't even standing room left. We even had a queue of people outside waiting to get in. We presented for the first half and we had 35 people stay back to participate in the exercise.
The teams rocked. They were from all over the world and completely embraced the approach. (Romania was particularly well represented). We had a peoples choice winner who landed on a nice "connection device" idea and we presented them with Flip cameras as prizes. Everyone got the Camp Organic at Cannes T-shirt and we told them if Sam and I see them wearing it later we have to buy them a drink.
Guys this rocked. People are interested and want to know how to get into the "program" - they want to be part of it. Our minds are racing.....the best was the woman from British Airways who walked past and asked what we were doing. "Reinventing travel" we said (our exercise) - she slipped Sam a card and said "let me know what you find"
Over and out from Cannes.
C.
Neo Rauch
Currently showing at David Zwirner
Until June 21st
(Image above is not part of the current show)
Think brooding big- shouldered handsome men in top coats, women of healthy stock, turmoil, legs that morph into waves, 18th century mixed with the 20th. His canvases are large, you're looking at dreams, they're surreal. There may be 3 completely different scenarios on one canvas. Lots of blood, violence, maybe a revolution is in the planning. Why else are there flags in the making, there's an old man sitting off to the side the flags are folded neatly under his chair.
The colors are murky, the weather is stormy. There's one painting of an artist in front of a canvas, he has a noose around his neck, is he suffering a creative block, is that what's causing strangulation, is the noose holding him hostage to that which he must begin? I asked one of the gallery assistants what the artist is like. She said he's very quiet, tall and handsome; his face is in several canvases.
This show is a must see, you will not be disappointed.
Kerry James Marshall
Jack Shainman Gallery
212-645-1701
May 22nd - June 3rd
Black Romantic
No, not mother and child. A couple, they're both black and shiny as tar, they're on the beach, in the sunset, and the male is tossing the female in the air. The show feels breezy, clear, and brisk. His faces remind me of a piece of African sculpture my mother has, the lips are broad the rims are sharp.
There is also an installation, there's a mini ship adorned with medallions of photographs, some faces are recognizable. The base of the piece is shiny and black. I interpreted this work as a depiction of black people being shipped from the motherland and how we were spread out all over on the journey over. Some became famous, some not. Jack Shainman is one of my favorite galleries; they have a diverse group of artists on their roster.
Minds will be blown. More to come!
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I have spoken to some of you about the current Emerging Platforms project
> which we call the "RFID Fair." The purpose of the project is to demonstrate
> what can be done with simple RFID technology and create a learning
> atmosphere for our employees.
>
> I have put together this quick overview to provide you all with an update as
> to what we are doing.
>
> Ive also copied the dev team on this email so they can follow any questions
> that come up.
>
> We are going to start the NYC initiative with data collection on 6/9 and
> present the results at beer bash on 6/13.
>
>
> Chad
>
I didn't even really want to go see Chronicles of Narnia this weekend. But, my husband did, and compromise is what marriage is all about. Plus, we had some free movie passes we had been waiting to use. The movie was decent, but pretty slow, dragging its way to the 2 hour mark. That's when the action finally picked up. Good guy, bad guy, kick-ass sword fight battle. Things were getting tense... and that is when the power went out.
The whole theater was in blackness. Emergency lights come on, and a manager wanders in. We are told we could stay in the theater and wait out the vicious storm going on outside with the hopes the power would magically return, or we could grab some free movie passes and leave. So we opted for the second option.
Part of me hoped that our power at home would be off too, the part that likes to be forced to cook over a fireplace and pull out the board games over candle light. But the other part just really wanted to see the end of the movie, especially since I had invested 2 hours of my life. That part got home, and 40 minutes later, through some illegal downloading, acquired a Seinfeld style camera at movie screen video of the movie. It's something I make a point not to do with new movies, but really, did I have any other choice?
-Marta Strickland
My first reaction after reading the course description was, I guess this could be interesting but I'm not sure if this is my thing.... Although I was looking forward to spending a day learning about something new instead of working, I wasn't sure what to expect.
At first glance of the 300+ page booklet we were going to cover over the course of the day, I felt like I was back in university and realized I should've brought a couple of highlighters and maybe a stress ball to exercise my hand for all the note taking ahead of me.
The girl seated next to me quickly advised me to grab a second coffee before the course began.
Paula got right to the point and informed the class of about 120 students to be ready for a very, very intensive day.
Intensive it definitely was but she covered a huge amount of information. Since the course was about online advertising, she began by comparing it to traditional means of advertising such as television, radio and print and pointed to statistics showing how rapidly the interactive market has grown in recent years. Even top television shows that are shown primetime during the Thursday night line up don't have nearly as large an audience as many websites do. The numbers of people who are always multitasking surprised me as well, especially the amount of baby-boomers that watch TV while surfing the net and chatting on their cell phone.
One of the places I didn't expect to see so many ads are video games. Not being a gamer, I assumed there would only be ads in some sports games to replicate hockey arenas or tennis courts where you normally see ads when you watch sporting events live or on TV. I was surprised to see that advertising has become so predominant in many video games which often simulate real life situations. Even though games like Grand Theft Auto don't (necessarily) depict something that an average person would do in real life, ads are strategically placed all over the streets in the game just like we see everyday in the streets of the city.
It's definitely a good way to target people at any age really especially considering games are becoming so much more user-friendly allowing even the older population play just like their grandchildren.
Paula also gave some good advice and examples of rich media ad units and showed the class how to effectively create banner ads that audiences will notice. A little thinking outside the "Big Box" could really change the value of an ad and simply provide brand awareness providing there is correct usage of a logo. She also touched on how much consumers have passion of video online. People have become more engaged in seeing an online video ad as opposed to a commercial on television.
Most times, viewers grab a snack or visit the washroom while a commercial is running on TV, whereas on the internet, often times viewers are forced to watch ads before a video plays. Furthermore, video uses everything that TV has but provides immediacy to the consumer allowing online audiences to become more quickly engaged in whatever it is they are watching.
I found this one day course to teach me a lot of little things I was unaware of and now I'm more informed of what an agency like Organic does. I've opened up my eyes to much more and realize that ads definitely affect me a lot more than I would like to think. People's lives are revolving more and more around the internet and as this medium continues to grow, online advertising will definitely flourish. I truly intend to be a bigger part of it in the future.
http://www.iabcanadaevents.com/course/4105/home.asp
Shazeen Pirani
For more than 12 years, we have had bagel Wednesdays and Beer Bash on Fridays. It was great to know that I could count on breakfast on Wednesday mornings no matter where I was going to land. More recently, we have added fruit to the list of items you can see in any of our offices. Living in California, I thought this was great and would really save on my food bill. However, I never realized the extent to which Organics love their fruit. At some point in the week, bushels and bushels of fresh fruit are brought in. It's so much fruit that you would think it never imagine it would be eaten before it went bad. But, I did my little research. The picture below is the day the fruit arrived
And, here is the next day...
There were still 2 more days left in the week! I know this is just San Francisco. But, I have heard of stories where fruit is announced by the office-all email and within hours the fruit has been devoured. I think we need to add more fruit!
--Marita Scarfi
We have our signage up on the building - Super Cool! Thanks to Elliott Smith for his cool designs and to Russ for arranging for the manufacture and installation ... Now I now longer feel embarrassed about that little piece of paper we had up on the front door ...
-David Feldt