SÉANCE: ALBERT VON KELLER AND THE OCCULT + IMPLIED VIOLENCE: YES AND MORE AND YES AND YES AND WHY

Last Tuesday a small group of Blackbird people headed to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle for their Tea and Tour event which featured the works of Albert von Keller, a Swiss-born painter with an mysterious obsession for the other side of the spiritual world, and Implied Violence, an artist group that performs live works where people are drugged, leached, bound and taken beyond reality.

For $5 we were treated an informative two-hour guided walking tour followed by tea, cookies and a chat with the show's curator.  Of course, we stood out in the crowd with our dressed in black with shaved heads kind of mystery to contrast the sweater-set wearing silver haired elder art ladies and a single dirty old man who scared and entertained us with his muffled commentary on every nude painting in the show.

We were most impressed when the show's curator came out to tell us more about Implied Violence, and proceeded to enchant us with her dark curly locks and Rick Owens ensemble while detailing the use of leaches, bondage and aether in their performances.

Let's not forget the art.  Both shows were outstanding with their common theme of innocence and experimentation with darkness, human power and the unknown.  After the tea, we headed back to the galleries to look deeper into the swirling brushstrokes that seem to tell us that something from beyond was present in the room.  We could have stayed all day.

The Fry Art Museum is free and open every day except Monday.

More events at The Frye you might be interested in:

October 28th

6:30 pm

Writing Ghosts and the Wraiths of Art: The Aesthetic Dimension of Spiritualism around 1900

Georg Braungart, Department of German, University of Tübingen, Germany
Frye Auditorium (FREE)

 

October 30th

2 pm

The Unconscious as a Creative Force

David Hufford, M.A.; Susan Radant, Ph.D.; and Kathy Weissbourd, Ph.D.
Frye Art Studio, Galleries (FREE)

 

GARAGE NIGHT: CMRTYZ DANCE PARTY + SUMMER SEND-OFF AT THE HAZELWOOD

Garage Night @ The Hazelwood
Tuesday, May 25th
9PMish-2AMish

CMRTYZ is heading off to Europe by way of New York City on their Psychadelic Summer tour, and tonight's Garage Night is set to be a combination dance party and farewell bash. You in?

If you're a Ballard local or bar-goer and/or you read this blog, you know that Blackbird's favorite watering hole, The Hazelwood, has been hosting a monthly garage rock party with the boys of CMRTYZ every last Tuesday of the month since way back in 2009. Much drinking and dancing has taken place in those months, and tonight is sure to follow suit. If you're going to be in Ballard this evening, swing by and help send the CMRTYZ gang off in style.

Scroll down to read more about their plans for Psychadelic Summer or click here to catch up on Facebook.

CMRTYZ presents...
Psychadelic Summer 2010

Opening Night Party featuring live rooftop performances by The Beets and The Babies
Thursday, June 24, 2010
5:00pm - 11:00pm
Rare Gallery
547 W 27 Street No. 514, New York City, NY

Psychadelic Summer is an art show that will shine a light on the tight knit emerging lo-fi garage music scene spreading across the country. Long distance colleagues turned friends will be featuring new works as artists Cassie Ramone, C.M. Ruiz, John Malta, and Matthew Volz exhibit their artwork together for the first time in multiple formats including a large newsprint zine with all of the artists' work inside!

A gallery exhibition and record store installation, Psychedelic Summer will stock releases featuring artwork designed by each of the artists as well as records from choice labels HoZac, Goner, Captured Tracks, Hardly Art, Bachelor, Vice, Boom! Chick, Family Time, Highfives and Handshakes, Florida's Dying, Sweet Rot, No Pain In Pop, and more.

To top it off, BRAND NEW records premiering by Psychic Lunch/CMRTYZ will also be available! Check 'em out:

Prison - "Blackheart" 7"
Fungi Girls/Indian Wars split 7"
Cassie Ramone/The Beets split 7"
Dead Ghosts - "Live Tapes" 12"

Needless to say, if you're in New York City this season, you won't want to miss Psychadelic Summer!

BLACKBIRD RECOMMENDS: DRINK & DRAW!

DRINK & DRAW
Presented by the UW Industrial Design Program and King's Hardware in Ballard.

King's Hardware
5225 Ballard Ave

April 6th, 8-11p.m.
May 4th, 8-11p.m.

The University of Washington Industrial Design Program and King's Hardware in Ballard are happy to continue the popular Drink & Draw events in April and May. With a small $5 contribution for supplies, you can draw to your heart's content. Even if you're not a drawer, it's a great way to have fun and get in on some drink specials. All drawings can be considered for merit prizes or just some free drinks for trying and having fun.

Prize categories include:
Dirty Sanchez (dirtiest)
Gut Buster (funniest)
Best in Show
Gold Stars (Thanks for trying)
Second Worst (Because there is always someone who is worse)
The Norman Bates Award (most derranged)

Join us for laughs, cheap/free drinks and a good time. Even if you can't draw, you can drink and draw! It's free to get in the bar and $5 to participate in D&D. All proceeds benefit the UW's Industrial Design Junior Show at the end of May.

Scroll down to see recent Drink & Draw winners and honorable mentions:

Winner, Best in Show

Winner, Norman Bates Award

Winner, Special Olympics Silver Medal

ART SHOW RECAP: THE MAKING OF C.M. RUIZ'S HAPPY HOME

Blackbird pal and co-founder of CMRTYZ, Carlos Ruiz, recently debuted his solo art exhibition, Happy Home at Seattle's Design Commission Gallery. Check out The Stranger's coverage here, and take a peek at the crazy time lapse video of the setup and execution of this one-of-a-kind installation below.

If you're in the Seattle area, swing by DCG through April 30th while it's still showing. Prices are great and the artwork is fantastic! (Editor's Note: Personal favorites include the large piece featuring a toothy devil-child and a giant pentagram as well as artwork from the forthcoming release from Vancouver, B.C. rock 'n' rollers, The Dead Ghosts.)

C. M. Ruiz at Design Commission Gallery - Timelapse from Design Commission on Vimeo.

BALLARD ART WALK: BLACKBIRD, AMBACH & RICE & 20twenty

「Inflation 與 Invasion」

Paintings by Ryuuta Iwashita

@ BLACKBIRD STUDIO

Art for the Masses

by Alon Levin

Places I've Wanted To Show You

by Eamonn Parke

A VISIT TO NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER, SUWON, SOUTH KOREA

Tucked away just south of Seoul is the somewhat newly opened Nam June Paik Art Center, a very large and beautiful museum dedicated to the grandfather of video art, Nam June Paik. Living abroad, from Japan to Germany to U.S., Paik became quickly associate of the main fluxus and otherwise experimental art figures, including John Cage, La Monte Young, Joseph Beuys, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hermann Nitsch, and countless others. Since his purchase of Sony's first portable video recorder, Paik made history with his experimental video work; from straight shooting to manipulation of video signals using magnets and other means. His art was presented as various forms of sculptures and physical creations, recorded videos, installations, happenings, and other performance art.

The Nam June Paik Art Center has a great collection of all of his mediums, as well as occasional exhibitions of like-minded artists and performers. Admission is free, as are the guided tours available in both Korean and English.

"The architect for Nam June Paik Art Center was selected among 430 participants in an international competition endorsed by the International Union of Artists (UIA) in 2003. The prize winning entry by Kirsten Schemel, a young German architect, who was commissioned together with Marina Stankovic in KSMS Schemel Stankovic Architects (Berlin) to design the building shown [above]. Characteristic of the museum is its screen facade consisting of several layers of reflective and partly printed glass." [from http://njp.kr/ff_eng.html]

Both the building itself and the surrounding area are worthy of exploration and investigation. In fact, as signs behind the museum point out, while excavating for the museum, several ancient artifacts were discovered.

And inside the building; sculptures, robots, writings, paintings, memorabilia, photographs, videos, and everything else you can imagine. One particularly good quote by the notorious Hermann Nitsch is displayed, explaining Paik's insistence on basically "hopping in" and getting chest-deep in blood and guts during one of Nitsch's controversial "Aktions." Alongside the quote is video of one of Nitsch's performances shown in vibrant color; aside from perhaps being there in-person, there is not much else like seeing such a large and crystal-clear viewing of his performances.

The museum is easily accessible by bus from downtown Seoul. With free admission and a cheap, short bus ride, even those not completely interested in this sort of experimental art should find appreciation in the chance to get out of Seoul for a day. Find full directions on the homepage.

LIGHT AND SHADOW: ARTWORK BY SUZANNE STEFAN

Deplier
Plaster, 6 in. x 72 in.
$1300

To purchase or for questions, please email info@blackbirdballard.com.

Untitled 19
Plaster, 3 in. x 72 in.
$900

To purchase or for questions, please email info@blackbirdballard.com.

All of us at Blackbird and Birgitta are so excited to showcase the delicate sculptures of our friend, Suzanne Stefan.

Suzanne is a sculptor and architect who lives and works in Bainbridge Island, Washington. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and attended the masters program at L'Accadema di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Raised in the United States, India, and Belgium, she has traveled extensively and her visits to remote, austere landscapes in East Africa, Asia, and Europe have been inspirational to her sculptural and architectural work. In 2008, she opened her first solo show at Royal Gallery in Phoenix, Arizona, and most recently, her sculptural work was exhibted in Seattle's International District for the first Annual Art Walk. Current works continue her investigation of folding light and shadow.

ART: NUDES by JOEY BATES, THE LINE KING

Joey Bates
"Nudes - 10 new works made of cut paper and graphite"
July 1st through July 31st - Opening Reception Juy 2nd 6-8pm
Zeitgeist - 171 S. Jackson Seattle, WA 98104

(click on this to see the continuous line details. outstanding!)

Statement:
"Nudes" is comprised of two different experiments.
Last year I started incorporating cut paper into my artwork. The five cut out nudes seen in this show are studies of the human form (technically one human). Care was taken in the formal aspects of the pictures while working in a medium I am just beginning to work with.
The five graphite drawings presented here are step away from my previous work. For the past five years I have been focusing on portraiture with an emphasis on facial expression. For this show I have asked the sitters to disrobe and relax as many facial muscles as possible. The results are a series of studies of the upper torso and head. I have found that there is a large difference in our faces when we let go of facial expressions and are not communicating with on another.